


Oracle

by balmorhea



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family Issues, First Order, Force Bond (Star Wars), Forgiveness, Freaky science programs, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Human Experimentation, Hux is a science officer, Implied/Referenced Torture, Implied/Referenced Violence, Kylo Ren Redemption, Original Character(s), Rey and Ben Argue a lot, Reylo - Freeform, Skywalker Family Drama, defecting the First Order, emotionally stunted reylo, slowburn, the Empire did creepy shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-04-18 02:56:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 78,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14203521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/balmorhea/pseuds/balmorhea
Summary: Alternate Universe set at the beginning of TFA--In the far corners of the Unknown Regions, the First Order’s top science officer, Commander Armitage Hux, is creating a weapon more dangerous than any Death Star the Empire built. When Supreme Leader Snoke’s impatience causes a critical error, the First Order rushes to cover up their mistake—and recover their loss.Weeks later, in the empty desert of Jakku, Rey meets a strange man who doesn’t speak much. He wants his ship repaired, and she wants a ride off Jakku. She had been longing for a human connection, but she didn't expect it to come crashing out of the sky.





	1. Tuanul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn abandons First Order after Tuanul is destroyed following the disappearance of Lor San Tekka.

With every step, his feet sank into the sand, as though the planet itself was trying to pull him back. His breath came out in frozen white puffs and a sharp stitch had formed in his side. FN-2187’s armor had been left behind to burn with the rest of Tuanul, and he was determined to put as much space between himself and the massacre as possible before daylight.

For hours he had lain amongst the carnage, pretending to be a casualty as the First Order moved through the village. He kept still, hardly daring to breathe, desperately hoping no one would attempt to check on him.

 _Just leave me,_ he repeated to himself, over and over.

Three ships had descended upon Tuanul shortly after sunset, each filled with a squadron of no less than a dozen Stormtroopers assigned to search the village. Adults and children alike were dragged from their primitive huts, forced to line up in the square at blaster point. The villagers watched on in fear while the newly-graduated Stormtroopers stood at attention, their demeanor a mix of thrill and unease, awaiting instruction.

The search was for a hermit named Lor San Tekka. When he proved elusive in the hunt, Phasma ordered an interrogation of the villagers. When no one could give information, she ordered an execution of the village leader as encouragement.

Immediately half a dozen villagers came forward, shouting over one another, suddenly willing to surrender information. FN-2187, who was positioned just behind Captain Phasma, could overhear the conversation between her and Lieutenant Pell.

“They all say Tekka left weeks ago, Captain,” Pell advised. “No one admits to knowing his whereabouts.”

“Then the whole village is useless,” Phasma replied. She signaled for Pell to line up the troopers. The confessing villagers were yanked to their feet and pushed back into line. “On my command—“

When Captain Phasma gave the order to exterminate the whole village, FN-2187 raised his blaster along with the others, but his finger hesitated over the trigger. Even as blaster bolts illuminated the space around him, blinding and hot, FN-2187 couldn’t bring himself to fire. Screams echoed in his helmet as the villagers attempted to flee and others shot back, but their basic weaponry was no match for First Order soldiers. In seconds the ground was littered with the dead as the Stormtroopers broke rank and descended upon the fleeing villagers. Through his helmet, FN-2187’s senses were struck by the strong metallic scent of blood.

Half the unit was dispatched to hunt down the runaways while the others made quick work of burning the village. Fire raged through the primitive huts, a single bright spot in the otherwise black night of the desert.

FN-2187 had made it through countless drills and First Order military scenarios, but this was his first true battle since the disaster in the Pressylla system. Captain Phasma had insisted on his participation for an otherwise sensitive mission purely to test him. FN-2187 was in very dangerous territory with the Captain’s patience due to his inability to follow her orders; there was no chance he wouldn’t be recycled the second the unit returned to the _Finalizer_ if FN-2187 didn’t fire his weapon.

He didn’t know what made him decide to run except a wild and primitive need to stay alive. FN-2187 wasn’t willing to commit murder, so the only option was to play dead and hope he was left behind.

Eventually the blaster shots and screams subsided, and the frigid night air was pierced only by the sound of ship engines. If it weren’t for the smell, it might have almost been peaceful. FN-2187 could hear Captain Phasma ordering the troops into formation, and listened with terrified anticipation as the unit boarded their ships. With another deafening roar and a rush of wind from the engines, the First Order took flight and were gone.

FN-2187 was too frozen with shock to move right away. Shocked at the realization that he had defected, shocked that his plan to run had actually worked… eventually fear took control of his brain once more and he leapt to his feet.

The air was suffocatingly hot as the fires burned. FN-2187 ripped his armor off and threw it into a burning hut. There was no point in scavenging for supplies; if he didn’t hurry, the flames would trap him and he would burn with the rest of Tuanul.

He didn’t have any particular direction in mind, but figured he would reach a village or outpost eventually. The night air was freezing, and after a few hours of trudging through sand, FN-2187’s adrenaline was wearing off. He didn’t dare stop to rest, even for a moment; he had to keep moving if he was going to keep his core temperature warm enough to survive the night.

For miles the desert sand stretched on, flat fields of sand periodically giving way to dunes shaped by the unpredictable weather. The sky was clear and brilliantly bright, illuminated by millions of stars, ships, and satellites. The planet’s two sliver-shaped moons were the only indication of the passing time, trailing slowly across the night sky until dawn finally approached.

His body ached, his throat was parched, and now FN-2187 would have to deal with a new problem: the approaching heat of the desert afternoon. He had no idea how hot this desolate wasteland got; he could either drop dead of heatstroke by midday or get swept up in a sandstorm. Perhaps it was the rainy season and flash flooding would drown him. FN-2187 tried not to think about which was the worst of any potential deaths as he forced himself on.

Now that the terrain was illuminated by the brilliant pink sky, FN-2187 could see he was passing through an ancient city half-buried by sand. The dunes had given way to an endless dry and cracked scrubland with towering hills of exposed rock. Ancient statues, smoothed and blanched by the passage of time, stared blankly into the desert. They cast long shadows across the ground, of which FN-2187 was happy to take advantage. It wouldn’t be long until the sun was at its zenith.

The distant hills collapsed into sand dunes once more, and FN-2187 spent the hottest part of the day struggling to move his feet through the moving ground. Sweat had stopped beading on his forehead, and he knew it wouldn’t be long until heatstroke took over. He stumbled through the dunes, bent over on all fours to climb his way over one before sliding down the next. His pace was becoming slower, more desperate; cramps were forming knots in his back and legs. He struggled to breathe in the oppressive heat, his hands burning each time he dug them into the hot sand for momentum.

He just needed to rest for a moment, that was all. Just a few minutes to catch his breath and he would be ready to force himself over the next dune…

FN-2187 didn’t know for how long he lay there, but he was was suddenly brought back to his senses when a shadow suddenly passed over his face. He squinted in the bright light, a hand shielding his eyes from the sun as he peered at the dark mass above him.

“ _Salam dooet e man_!” The shadow greeted.

FN-2187 rolled over, relieved to find another person out here, even if he couldn’t understand him. He struggled to get to his feet when a spear was suddenly shoved in his face. FN-2187 froze, his eyes traveling from the spear tip to the masked face in front of him.

There were three figures, all clad in the same assortment of draped fabrics and primitive clay masks. The leader held an old blaster rifle over his shoulder while the nearest, the one holding the spear, spoke rapidly in that same unknown tongue.

FN-2187 raised his hands slowly, showing he meant no harm. “I’m not your enemy,” he gasped, his throat too dry to speak properly. He swallowed, hoping to get some moisture in his throat. “I’ve been walking all night—“

“You fighter?” The spear-wielding man demanded, his Basic heavily accented.

FN-2187’s brows knit together as he shook his head. “No—I mean no harm—“

“Then you food!”

The spear end whacked him hard on the side of the head. Exhausted from heat and dehydration, FN-2187 crumpled easily. A wave of nausea coursed through him, though there was nothing in his stomach to expel.

The three faceless figures laughed.

FN-2187 rolled to his side in the shifting sand. Stars had exploded over his eyes, blinding him. His First Order-issue blaster rifle was strapped to his back, and he wondered how quickly he could reach for it before he was gutted by the spear. Before he had the chance to find out, however, the spear came down with a hard _thunk,_ and FN-2187 collapsed.

 

* * *

 

When he came to again, it was slow. For a long time all he could feel was the cool air, soothing against his burnt skin. Next came the sensation of lying on a flat surface—which could only mean he wasn’t in the open desert. He swallowed, and his throat felt raw, his mouth parched with dehydration. Finally he was able to open his eyes, blinking several times in the low light while he waited for his senses to return.

It was a shelter; it was all FN-2187 could deduce from his limited view of his surroundings. Metal walls surrounded him, looking oddly like the guts of a ship. Lamps were tied to various stations, mismatched and eery in their glow. FN-2187 turned his head to the side, focusing on the assortment of… _junk_ that littered the floor. Among the rubbish were personal items: an old doll, a cot, a rucksack knocked to its side…

Then came the muffled sound of voices… male and female… followed by approaching footsteps.

FN-2187 planted his elbows on the cot and forced his shoulders up. His head spun for a few seconds before he was able to clear his vision and assess his surroundings. He was still dressed in his uniform—or what remained of it—and his boots remained on his feet. All he was missing was—

“Are you looking for this?”

His eyes shot up, and he froze as fear pierced his heart. His first thought was that the First Order had found him. His second thought was much worse.

It was like seeing a dead man brought back to life, the ghost of the figure that had haunted the intelligence community of the First Order for the last two months… surely it couldn’t be him… there had been a televised execution, an endless stream of propaganda that detailed the fates of defectors and traitors alike…

The man who held his blaster knelt down so they were almost eye-level. His dark eyes lingered on the blaster with mild curiosity before fixing onto FN-2187’s face. The long scar that traveled down the side of the stranger’s face was unsettling. Worse still, FN-2187 felt that penetrating gaze boring into his own, as though the man could read his mind…

“Tell me,” the man continued. “why you were wandering the desert with First Order boots and a First Order issue blaster rifle? Rather unusual effects for a traveler.” His voice was quiet, dangerous…

“I was lost,” FN-2187 answered, half-truthfully. His heart was beating wildly in his chest. He had every instinct to bolt, to get as far away from this man as possible…

“Lost?” The man repeated, his dark brows raised with playful skepticism.

“Where am I?” FN-2187 asked, daring to take his eyes off his captor for a few seconds to look at the space around them.

Naturally, there was no reply. The strange man set down the blaster on a metal ledge somewhere behind him before fixing his attention back onto FN-2187. “I’ll make this easier for you,” he continued smoothly. An invisible fist grabbed FN-2187 by the front of his uniform, sending a jolt of fear through his spine. “I know you’re a Stormtrooper. I know you’re with the First Order. Tell me who sent you.”

The unexpectedness of the question grounded FN-2187’s senses. “Who sent—what?”

His blaster—as if acting with a mind of its own—suddenly rose up and pointed directly at his heart while the invisible fist tightened, threatening to choke him. FN-2187 struggled against it, filled with a fresh wave of terror. His eyes darted from his captor to his blaster, floating on its own accord.

“Don’t play dumb with me,” Ren hissed, his voice barely above a whisper. “If this is Hux’s idea—“

“No one sent me!” FN-2187 gasped. “I’m on my own!”

The man’s dark eyes narrowed suspiciously. They raked over FN-2187, taking in every detail of his expression, his body language… FN-2187 felt terribly exposed by the invasive way the man searched his face. He expected Ren to push into his mind, torture him for the truth—he had heard stories of the man’s unique talent for ripping into minds and searching for information…

“I defected,” he conceded, spilling the truth in a desperate attempt to quell Kylo Ren’s paranoia. “We came for a target in Tuanul, and I ran—that’s it—I have _no_ idea—“

“Why Tuanul?” Ren interrupted. His force grip didn’t lessen on FN-2187’s shirt, but the blaster rifle nestled itself back down on the ledge behind Ren.

“Lor San Tekka,” FN-2187 answered. “The Supreme Leader wanted him. I don’t know why—my briefing was only the minimum information—“

“How did you escape?”

“There was a massacre—orders to destroy the village—“ FN-2187 swallowed against the dry lump in his throat. “I pretended to be a casualty. The First Order doesn’t even know I’m still alive. Look,” he added, desperate. “I’m just a Stormtrooper—a defector—I don’t know anything aboutCommander Hux’s plans—I saw an opportunity to run, so I did… just like you…” he added in a final attempt to appeal to Ren’s sympathies.

If he had any. FN-2187 wasn’t sure.

Ren’s eyes searched his face, looking for any trace of deceit. There was a tense silence, a moment of hesitation…

And then he let go.

Stunned, FN-2187 scooted as far away from Ren as he could, his heart fluttering wildly in his chest. While there was no longer a blaster rifle in his face, FN-2187 knew he wasn’t out of danger yet.

“You know who I am.”

It wasn’t a question.

FN-2187 searched to find his voice. He picked up on Ren’s insinuation perfectly. “I won’t tell anyone—I promise—“

“People promise all kinds of things, in my experience,” Ren continued coolly. “And they all talk in the end…”

FN-2187 half-expected to see the infamous red lightsaber burst into life in Ren’s hand. Several painful, silent seconds passed… Ren was testing him, sizing him up, and FN-2187 would only have this one chance to convince him to spare his life.

“I wanted to get away, just like you,” he tried, not daring to take his eyes off Ren’s face. “I—“

“And what better way to secure your freedom than to buy it from the First Order in exchange for information about the elusive Kylo Ren?” He interrupted, his voice soft and dangerous.

“They wouldn’t believe me, even if I talked,” FN-2187 insisted. “They all think you’re dead. There’s no one there to read minds—“

“Except the Supreme Leader.”

“They would kill me anyway—it wouldn’t be worth the risk—“

A tense silence. And then—

“Is he up yet?” A woman’s voice called, muffled by the metal walls. FN-2187 jumped at the unexpectedness of it.

“Nearly,” Ren called back, his gaze never leaving FN-2187’s face. Then he added in a whisper, “If you breathe one word about me…”

“Silence—yeah—you got it—“ The wave of relief was nauseating.

Ren looked him over once more, his dark eyes taking in every detail of FN-2187’s exhausted appearance. “I haven’t made up my mind, yet.”

FN-2187 swallowed the lump in his throat.

There were soft footsteps, and then a small figure appeared around the corner. She was young—perhaps just younger than FN-2187—and her tanned face wore a strange look of mixed emotions: uncertainty, irritation, and curiosity . Unlike Kylo Ren, who was completely covered in dark garb, she was dressed in dusty pale linens. She was wiry and dirty, and FN-2187 was sure that she was a native to this desert wasteland.

There was a few seconds’ pause as she stared at him. “Who are you?” She asked bluntly.

“A defector,” Ren answered for FN-2187, shooting him a warning look the girl couldn’t see as he got to his feet. He didn’t take his eyes off the Stormtrooper. “Left for dead in the desert.”

“I’m not here to make trouble,” FN-2187 insisted, looking between Ren and the girl. “I just want to get as far away from the First Order as possible.”

The girl’s face hardened, but she nodded, as though she had guessed the answer already. FN-2187 saw her take a steadying breath before speaking again.

“And what’s your name?” She continued, crossing her arms.

“Finn,” Ren answered before FN-2187 could speak—it was a fortunate save. FN-2187 didn’t want to divulge his identification number—not that it meant much out here—but he didn’t think he could come up with a false name quickly enough to sound convincing. He hadn’t quite recovered from the shock of Ren sparing his life.

“Well, I’m Rey,” the woman added, looking FN-2187 up and down with thinly veiled curiosity. She turned to Ren, her expression turning back to something that looked like annoyance. “I’m heading to Niima.”

Wordlessly, Ren reached into his pocket and withdrew a handful of gold and silver currency, holding them out for Rey. She took them silently, stuffing them into the safety of her bag. “Right. Well, I’ll be back soon, then…” She shot another questioning look toward FN-2187—now renamed Finn—before disappearing from the shelter.

Finn labored to his feet, brushing dust off his black trousers. “Who was that?” He asked, fighting against the weakness in his legs.

“My mechanic,” Ren answered flatly before stepping away.

Finn followed. “And you?”

They ducked under a low pipe, turning a sharp corner and stepping over the uneven floor. Finn was close behind Ren.

“What about me?” Ren asked in the same disinterested voice as he tossed a canteen against Finn’s chest. He stepped outside, making his way toward a personal ship whose left wing was half-dismantled in the sand. The sun was low in the horizon, casting a brilliant orange glow against the sky. There was a pleasant coolness compared to the grueling heat of the day.

Finn allowed himself to fall back a few paces behind Ren, quenching the burning thirst in his throat before fixing his attention on the half-gutted ship. It was an imposing vessel, crafted in sleek black metal and designed with a stately wingspan. It would not have looked out of place among the officers’ ships within the First Order. Perhaps that was where Ren had obtained it.

“How are you still alive?” Finn asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his arm and trying to sort through the thousand questions burning into the forefront of his mind. “There was an execution— _your_ execution—a few weeks ago. We all watched it on the holonet.”

Ren let out a derisive snort, but didn’t reply.

“That wasn’t you,” Finn said, speaking aloud as the realization dawned on him.

“It wasn’t.”

“It was all fake…”

“No, the execution was real,” Ren told him bitterly, stopping in his tracks momentarily to look at Finn. He shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose as though the explanation pained him. “Just some poor soul who looked enough like me that the propaganda would work. The First Order can’t tolerate the appearance of messing up, not when they’ve wasted so much time looking for Skywalker…”

Finn frowned, dark brows knitting together as his memory turned back toward that day. Every trooper had been arranged in parade formation, full armor, and required to watch the televised execution of the First Order’s most notorious traitor. Kylo Ren, once the right hand man of the Supreme Leader and the military’s terrifying top enforcer, was revealed to be a conniving traitor, the would-be assassin of the Supreme Leader himself. The traitor had fled the First Order, leaving incomprehensible destruction in his wake and instigating the largest manhunt the galaxy had seen since the days of the Empire. Just two weeks later, after untold amounts of money and man-hours were spent, Kylo Ren was finally captured and arrested, tried in a secret trial, and sentenced to immediate execution. Only the highest level of officers were actually present as the event took place in an undisclosed location; the rest of the First Order watched the long-awaited execution on the holonet from their assigned flagships and planetary bases.

Finn swallowed against the lump in his throat. He had never interacted with Kylo Ren before, though the two had been assigned to the same flagship before all the chaos took place. He knew the man only through rumors and whispers, yet it was impossible to accept that the man who had saved him from the desert was the same man known as the Jedi Killer among the First Order.

“Is any of it true?” Finn asked. “What they accused you of?”

Ren pulled himself into the TIE’s open cockpit, moving something around the pilot’s seat. He settled himself in before speaking. “Does it ever matter?” There was pause, then, “You’re staying for as long as I’m here. You don’t leave my sight. Then we’ll take you to Niima Outpost—you can find your way from there.”

“Away from the First Order?” Finn tested.

Ren gave an irritated sigh, directing a withering look at him. “That’s not my problem—find a ship that’ll take you on to get you off Jakku, or don’t—I don’t care—understand?”

Finn chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment, weighing his options.

“Yeah. All right.”

Twilight had fallen by the time Rey returned to the shelter, riding on the back of a junkyard land speeder. She nodded once in Ren’s direction before shooting a cautious glance at Finn. “Food’s here,” she said, marching past them.

Ren made no movement, but Finn decided to follow Rey inside. She might be a bit more forthcoming with information—specifically the safest way off Jakku.

There was a sheet of metal hammered into a pan heating up on a stove. Rey was laying down some mystery substance onto the hot surface when Finn entered her field of vision. She looked up at him curiously, but refused to speak first.

“Thanks,” Finn said, deciding on manners to bridge the gap. “For letting me stay the night.”

“You would have died before the sun went down if we hadn’t found you,” she told him, cutting open some prepackaged bags of dehydrated nutrition and pouring the contents into a bowl. She let out a small sigh, suddenly looking exhausted. She paused, glancing at Finn again, and the weariness disappeared. “Where are you from?”

Finn hesitated. “Nowhere—“

“No one’s from nowhere.”

“I mean, it’s really nowhere. I grew up in the First Order, so I switched bases and flagships all the time.”

“Ah, so it’s a big secret,” she said, the corners of her mouth tugging upwards into a smirk. “Me too. And him,” she added, looking toward the direction of the door.

“He said you were his mechanic,” Finn told her, watching the meat substitute sizzle on the pan.

“He hired me to repair his ship,” Rey replied shortly. She seemed to sense the sharp tone in her voice, because then she added, “I can fix almost anything.”

“But he didn’t tell you who he was?”

“He’s paying me more for the job than Unkar does in half a year—no, I didn’t press him about who he was.” Rey divided the food into three portions and handed a makeshift plate to Finn, as though rushing to occupy him with something beyond questions. “You’ll need money to get off Jakku—a ride doesn’t come cheap.”

“How much?” Finn asked, his heart sinking.

Rey held the other two plates in each hand, shrugging. “It depends. Advanced blasters, computer parts, peggats or truguts…Don’t even bother offering aureis, they’re basically dirt out here. If you’ve found any Pyronium left in the dirt, though, that’ll buy you a ticket anywhere.”

“What about labor? Work in exchange for a ride?” Finn asked nervously. “Don’t people come and go all the time? Like from the trading outpost?”

“They come, but there’s not a lot of going,” she replied dully. “Jakku is the place to come if you want to hide; the only ships coming here work for Unkar Plutt, or they’re fleeing from something.”

Finn had an entirely different opinion of Jakku; it was once home to a number of Imperial military training bases and a research facility. It was also the location of the last major battle between the Empire and the Rebel Alliance. There were even rumors about a secret project of the last Emperor buried deep within the core of the planet. For someone fleeing the First Order, Jakku was the last place to be.

“Passing ships are a premium,” Rey continued. “Everyone’s willing to work for a ride out… Why don’t you leave the way you came? Where’s your ship?”

Finn thought about the roar of the First Order engines as Captain Phasma and the others took off, unknowingly leaving Finn behind. “Er… that’s not really an option.”

“If it crashed, I can fix it—for a price.”

“There is no ship—not anymore.”

Rey looked him up and down, openly curious. “You’re defecting, made it to Jakku, but you don’t have a ship? Do you have a plan?”

“No,” Finn replied a little too quickly.

“I guess you can hide. That’s what most people are here for,” she said, walking past him toward the door with the two plates in hand. She settled herself in the shade of the dilapidated AT-AT walker she used as her home, and Finn followed suit. Ren had retired his labor on his ship for the evening, and was walking toward them now, a black shadow against a periwinkle sky.

“Maybe you can convince him to take you,” she said softly, tearing her bread in half to make a sandwich. “He might have to owe you a life debt, first.”

Finn looked up at Rey before glancing at Ren’s approaching figure. “I don’t think that’s likely.”

She shrugged.

The food—at no fault of Rey’s—was flavorless and dry, but Finn devoured it without complaint, wiping the plate clean with his bare finger. The three strangers ate in complete silence, resting in the receding light of day until the air grew cold and the last shreds of daylight had faded away.

“Er—you can sleep here,” Rey offered, gesturing to an open spot on the floor as her eyes traveled elsewhere. “I’ll find you a blanket…”

Ren’s own sleeping pad—the cot Finn had awoken on hours before—was only a few meters away. He had already pulled off his boots and holster, tossing them unceremoniously into a pile nearby. Behind him, scratched into the wall, were hundreds—no, thousands—of tiny lines in neat rows. Rey returned moments later with a scratchy blanket and a fabric tarp. Finn folded the later onto the floor while he wrapped himself up in the blanket. He hadn’t bothered to remove his boots; if he had to flee in the night, he didn’t want to be delayed.

“Er, water canteens are hanging by the door,” Rey added. “The loo’s out back—you have to walk around the house—you’ll see it. The place creaks at night in the wind, so… don’t worry if you hear that. And don’t go far if you step outside—you’ll run into scavengers who take meat just as freely as they do metal.”

Finn thought of his attackers from earlier that afternoon and swallowed. He glanced over at Ren, who was lying flat on his back, his fingertips working at a headache around his eyes, ignoring them both. “Er, okay.”

Rey extinguished the lamps before retiring to the opposite side of the gutted AT-AT, casting the shelter into darkness.

Finn pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders, listening to the creaking of the AT-AT and the gentle breathing of the man next to him—for hours they both lay awake, neither speaking or making any acknowledgement. Finn was exhausted, but his mind was running wild with speculation.

Did Captain Phasma suspect him of desertion? Was he successful in faking his death in Tuanul? What could he offer to barter a ride off Jakku?

Occasionally he slipped into brief periods of fretful sleep, but when dawn approached and daylight seeped through the cracks of the AT-AT, Finn still only had a series of half-plans to get as far away from the First Order as possible.

 

 

 


	2. Jakku, Four Days Earlier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren arrives on Jakku with a damaged ship. Before he can return to space, he must seek repairs.

Four days earlier...

 

Ben had awoken with a start, but it took several moments before he was able to gather his wits and make sense of his surroundings. His harness was digging into his shoulders sharply—suffocatingly—and an oppressive heat filled the dark cockpit. The auxiliary lights were still powered, flickering around him. Ben flexed his hands and feet to make sure all his limbs were still attached. He had a blinding headache made infinitely worse by the sideways angle of his ship.

Forcing his limbs to work, Ben reached for his harness and worked to free himself. He half-fell out of his seat, barely catching himself before impaling his chest on the yoke. Slowly—agonizingly—he found his way to his feet and checked the ship’s computers for signs of life.

A hundred alerts flashed into the repair queue, each insisting they were more important than the last. The engines and fuel systems were in need of service but intact, and there was significant damage to the left wing. He wouldn’t get the ship airborne, let alone into space.

Ben swore under his breath, clutching the dull ache in his side. He released the hatch, pushing open the exit door to the blinding light of the desert wasteland of Jakku.

It was broiling—Ben’s skin burned even through his gloves as he pushed himself out of the cockpit of his crashed ship. A hot breeze ruffled through his hair, which was stuck to his head in a sticky mess on one side. Ben pulled his feet through the exit and tried to lower himself to the ground, but his grip gave away easily in his injured state, and he fell.

The sand was just as hot as the walls of his ship, and it burned against his exposed face. Ben groaned as he rolled over, clutching the sharp stitch in his side. He forced his eyes open, and all he saw was the brilliant blue of an unclouded sky and the sharp black wall of his ship next to him. No TIE fighters. No ships in pursuit.

No darkness encroaching on his senses, threatening to pull him under.

Ben clenched his fists, breathing heavily through his nose. He braced himself for the effort, and a moment later, forced himself into a sitting position. He had to half-pull himself up, resting his back against the ship. He had a clear view of the left wing, half-buried by sand. Entire solar panels had been blasted away, revealing the bare, wiry skeleton beneath. The little that remained was scorched and heavily warped, bending and twisting between the rivets holding it in place.

Ben knew he needed to check his navigation and maps for the nearest civilization, but the heat was so oppressive that he could hardly find the energy to move. It was like being cooked alive. He allowed himself a few moments of rest before climbing to his feet, hoisting himself up through the cockpit’s exit hatch in a series of very ungraceful movements. He allowed himself to lay on the uneven floor, breathing heavily against the sharp pain in his side. His clothes were suffocating in the heat, but Ben was too weak to strip anything off. He shut his eyes, resting his head against the smooth metal of the cockpit’s floor.

 

 

* * *

 

He’s only aware of coming to a second time because the cockpit has been plunged into shadow, and the grueling heat of the day was replaced by the promising cool breeze of an approaching frigid night.

Ben jerked awake, waiting for the rush of blood to his head to subside before peeling himself off the floor. He checked his maps for the nearest town—the scanners indicated Niima Outpost was a two mile walk to the south. Ben looked out the front windshield at the brilliant orange sky, debating if the trip might not be better suited for morning. A quick sideways glance at his computers—flashing warnings about the ship’s damage—hardened his resolve. Every hour was time wasted, and Jakku was filled with more foes than friends.

Ben touched the sticky mess on his temple with gentle fingers, wincing at the contact. He dug around underneath the console for his first aid box, tossing a few gauze pads and bacta solution onto the floor. The blood on his temple is mostly dry, though it’s a pain to wipe out of his hair. Ben then removed his woven armor and pulled his tunic up on one side, bending so he could get a view of his injury.

Thankfully there’s no real amount of blood to mop up, but a large purple bruise the size of his head has formed just above his hip. He lets out a swear under his breath. Ben leans his head back and shut his eyes, steeling himself for the pain as he presses against his ribs, searching for a break and jerking away from his hand with a hiss once he does. He doesn’t know if a bacta patch will do much, but he tapes one over the fracture anyway.

Satisfied he no longer looks like a crash victim, Ben arms himself with his blaster and purse of various backwater currency, taking care to tuck his lightsaber out of sight. His eyes linger on his black canvas pack, on the precious cargo buried beneath the fabric—cargo the First Order had been searching for—and he stuffs it deep into the storage compartment alongside his lightsaber. Ben locks the rest of his belongings in the storage below the cockpit and arms the shields before exiting the ship.

The sand gives way underneath his feet. The cool breeze rifles through his hair, blowing his dark locks around his head. Ben rubs the tender ache in his side before planting one foot in front of the other, starting the long walk to town.

It isn’t until the last few hundred meters or so that Ben finds any signs of life on Jakku. Land speeder tracks zig-zag across the packed sand and the occasional discarded junk marks the route to Niima Outpost. In the distance, silhouetted against the streaks of purple that were replacing the brilliant orange of the evening sky, a gate surrounded by land vehicles and the odd ship emerged. Ben could sense the bustle of life beyond—gambling, drinking, trading, and arguing were the preferred pastimes of Niima.

The dirt road is lined with dilapidated buildings constructed of scavenged metal and wood. Strips of weatherworn cloth hang from rafters, providing shade against the sun. True to its appearance, the town also has the distinct scent of sweat and decay. Most of the locals pay Ben no mind, carrying on with their evening rituals surrounded by cigarette smoke and the waft of stale alcohol, but a few watch him carefully, tracking his path with suspicious eyes. Ben ignores these stares, making a straight path for the junk boss’s concession stand.

Ben had been to Niima only once, years and years before, when he was still with Luke. His mission had been to bring lingering members of the Church of the Force to Tuanul, but on the return journey, an adolescent Ben decided to investigate the vices of Niima. He was challenged to a few modified games of _dejarik_ , which had been Chewbacca’s favorite game, and which Ben knew quite well. Perhaps his youthful face suggested naivety, and the locals felt assured of an easy win, but Ben won each round, further enraging his opponents until they finally pulled blasters. The commotion had caused scavengers to flee, and the ensuing fight resulted in some damage to Unkar Plutt’s concession stand. Undoubtedly that left a poor taste in Unkar’s memory of him—if he remembered him. Ben would have to be more careful, this time; he needed the right parts and perhaps a mechanic to get his ship airborne again, and it would be best not to piss off the junk boss a second time.

There was a line of ragged scavengers outside the concession stand, an odd mix of alien and human species. A few compared their days’ finds, but most clutched their wares to their chest protectively, eyeing their surroundings for potential thieves. Those who completed their trades bolted away with polarizing expressions of either happiness or dejection, heading either for the various drinking holes or the open expanse of desert.

Ben could feel the suspicious glares boring into his back. No one spoke to him, but their thoughts carried themselves loudly and Ben tried to shut them out.

Finally, when the skinny girl ahead of him had finished her business and stomped off—this one was unhappy—Ben approached the counter. Unkar’s ugly face broke into a look of open surprise—he thankfully didn’t recognize Ben—but he regained his composure almost immediately.

“And what are you in the business for?” He gruffed, eyeing Ben’s well-worn but quality boots. He was sizing him up, anticipating his wealth.

“I need parts for a ship—wing panels and the like,” Ben told him.

Unkar Plutt reached behind him and withdrew a large scrap of metal. “I have four sheets of alum—“

“That’ll work for a pleasure cruiser, but I need something more long-lasting.”

Unkar’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he put the metal away. “I have an old B-Wing—I won’t sell you the scrap, you’ll have to buy the whole thing.”

Ben felt a pang of annoyance. He could see the B-Wing in Unkar’s mind, and knew immediately that there wasn’t near enough scrap metal left to rebuild a TIE wing.

“What about a mechanic?” Ben tried instead. “Do any of your scavengers know their way around a ship?”

Unkar Plutt turned so he was facing Ben directly. He could feel the gears turning in the old Crolute’s head. “Have we met?” Unkar asked, his voice heavy with suspicion as his eyes lingered over Ben’s scar.

“I doubt it,” Ben replied shortly. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a handful of currency, far more than Unkar was likely to see in six months. He gave Unkar a sharp, piercing look. “Do you have the mechanic or not?”

Unkar reached out with a grubby hand, dragging the peggats toward himself. He leaned over the counter, looking over the heads of his waiting line. “Rey!”

Ben looked over his shoulder and saw the skinny girl from the front of the line—now several meters away—hesitate.

“Rey!”

She looked visibly annoyed at being called back, her eyes narrowed and jaw set tight. She adjusted the staff over her shoulder before marching back down the dirt road, ignoring Ben and the others to focus on Unkar Plutt. “What?”

“You have a job—this man’s hired you for work.”

Rey shot a suspicious glare in Ben’s direction. He could hear her thoughts crashing through her head in quick succession, entertaining various ideas of what Unkar could mean. The more disturbing options made Ben recoil in disgust. “What kind of work?”

Unkar slammed a hand down on the counter before anyone could speak and leaned over so he was eye-level with the girl. “If you expect to trade your wares here in future, girl, you’ll do as I say!”

Rey’s eyes fell on the peggats clutched in Unkar’s other hand, and Ben could feel her distaste growing. Without a second glance, she turned on her heel and marched away. Silently, Ben followed.

It wasn’t until they were well out of earshot of anyone that she spoke.

“What do you want?”

“To fix my ship and get off this planet,” Ben snapped. He was exhausted, and the ache in his side was a constant source of irritation. It felt like being stabbed each time he took a breath. He had considered seeking a medic while in Niima, but now he would rather deal with the pain of a fractured rib than go back and barter with Unkar some more.

Rey’s guard lowered marginally. She brushed a stray lock of hair from her face, fixing her eyes on Ben. He could feel her gaze lingering over his scar. “What’s wrong with it?”

“The left wing needs new paneling.”

Her eyebrows rose. “That’s it?”

“That’s all I need help with,” Ben replied shortly. “The rest I can manage myself.”

The girl considered him. “Well, you’ll need parts that can withstand space travel—Unkar doesn’t have anything he isn’t willing to sell, even to other-worlders. There’s a couple of ships in the graveyard east of here—it’ll take some searching, but something might turn up.”

“Might?” Ben repeated.

She shrugged, visibly annoyed. “It’s that or going into the old Observatory.”

That caught Ben’s attention. “What observatory?”

“It’s this rocky outcropping—the Church call it the ‘Plaintive Hand.’ Supposedly it used to be some kind of holy site, and then the Empire turned it into an observatory—but like everything on Jakku, it’s been abandoned.”

“Where is it?”

Rey pointed east.

Ben resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “How far?”

“At least a day on a land speeder,” she supplied before continuing her march through the compacted sand.

Ben’s eyes narrowed. “I’m supposed to do that myself,” he said, speaking Rey’s thoughts aloud.

“You hired me to repair, not to scavenge,” Rey told him sourly, approaching a rusted land speeder. “Take it up with Unkar.”

Ben rolled his eyes. “How much?”

She hesitated in the driver’s seat, watching him with careful suspicion. “Excuse me?”

“How much do you want to help me find the parts?” He clarified, not bothering to hide the irritation in his voice.

He could feel her thinking about prices—she wasn’t concerned with currency, it was survival rations she cared about. “Fifty portions,” she decided with the air of someone ready to be challenged.

Ben didn’t know what that translated to out here, but he didn’t care. “Fine.”

She was surprised by how easily he agreed, but didn’t say it. “Fine.” She turned over the engine to her land speeder. “I’ll need to see the ship first,” she added.

“Is that necessary?” Ben challenged.

“Yes,” she said. “I need to know what kind of damage there is if I’m supposed to know what parts to look for.”

Ben wasn’t keen on taking this girl to his crashed ship before he had the parts for repair, but he hadn’t sensed anything hostile from her apart from the typical amount of suspicion. He sighed, then pointed his finger toward the north. “Two miles.”

Rey glanced toward the dark horizon before looking back down at Ben. “Meet me back here at dawn. It’s too dark to do anything now.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine.”

“And wear something lighter than that if you want to avoid heatstroke,” she added.

He let his hand drop. “Anything else?”

She rolled her eyes before pulling her goggles back down. Without further comment, she pulled the land speeder around and drove off, leaving a trail of dust in her wake.

Ben shot another dark look toward Niima Outpost before starting on his journey back to his ship. The double moons were high over the horizon, which was reduced to a black shadow against the starry sky.

It was a long walk back to his ship.

 

* * *

 

It was a terrible night of sleep. Ben never slept well anyway—a part of him was always on high alert, ready to stave off even the faintest hint of an invasion. His broken ship creaked in the night, making him jumpy. What little sleep he did manage was plagued by nightmares—total darkness, a loss of control, and _him…_ luring him back…

Ben forced himself up at the first signs of dawn, shivering in the freezing cockpit. He performed his usual ritual of first checking for his lightsaber and then his blaster. Satisfied they hadn’t disappeared in the night, he reached for a nutritional bar from his stock under the console and forced himself to eat it.

By the time he reaches Niima Outpost again, the sun is breaking over the horizon and Rey is already there, waiting. She holds out a hand to help him up. “I doubt you want to walk,” she says by way of greeting. She doesn’t miss the way Ben grimaces as he climbs onto the speeder behind her, clutching his injured side, but she doesn’t comment on it, either.

She drives according to Ben’s directions, and within minutes the black shape of his crashed ship is visible on the horizon.

Rey parks the speeder just meters away, staring at the ship with awe and surprise as she cuts off the engine. Ben can sense she had been expecting a cargo trader, or an ancient skiff, and was shocked to see something so advanced.

“What happened?” Rey asked, stepping toward the ship with her eyes fixed on the destroyed wing.

“Solar damage.”

Rey turned to look at him. It’s obvious she doesn’t believe him, but she doesn’t press the issue further. She inspects the wing closely, walking around it two or three times and occasionally running her fingers over the damage. There’s a clear burn mark from laser fire, which Rey examines with close interest.

“Well?” Ben asked impatiently.

Rey’s eyes traveled over the imposing hull, her fingers following. “I can fix it.”

Ben let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding as relief washed over him.

“Can it still fly?” She asks.

Ben thinks about the question. “The engines work, but I can’t steer.”

“We could tie it to the speeder,” Rey says, pointing at the damaged wing. “I’ll pull that side along, and you can give it a bit of power.”

“You can’t repair it here?” He asks dubiously.

She turns to face him. “It’ll be picked clean once someone spots it—and then you’ll have a bigger problem.”

Another wave of frustration washes over Ben. He can sense the truth in Rey’s mind, but he doesn’t like the hassle.

The delay.

“All right.”

The two spend a very frustrating hour tying the TIE to the back of Rey’s land speeder in various configurations, testing out which arrangement will actually half-lead, half-drag Ben’s ship through the sand. It’s a slow, arduous process, but soon the damaged TIE is nestled next to an overturned AT-AT that Rey explains is her home.

They stop for a brief rest in the shade, refilling their water canteens for the trip ahead.

“No one will touch it here,” Rey explains. “Unkar will make sure of it.”

Ben doesn’t quite share her confidence.

“All right,” Rey finally says, marching back toward the land speeder. “We can go. We’ll try the shipyard first.”

The trip to the starship graveyard takes almost an hour—the sun is well in the sky by the time Ben sees anything other than sand dunes. He recognizes the battered remains of Imperial starships, long past the point of decay. There was once a time where the sight would have made him angry; now he felt nothing.

Rey weaves the land speeder through a maze of starships long-since picked clean, driving deeper into the wreckage. She finally settles on a ship, half-buried in sand and looking just as decayed and rusted as all the others.

“Careful where you step,” she warns, sliding off the land speeder. “You’d be surprised what’s not bolted down.”

Ben follows her inside, stepping into a towering exhaust port. He can see evidence of past scavengers braving the heights to strip away the metal, over a hundred feet above them.

The ship is dark, illuminated only by stray beams of sunlight that have found their way through. Rey leads the way, walking deeper and deeper into the ship until it’s almost too dark to see. A flashlight is illuminated, searching their path through the depths of the ship.

“What’s your name?” Rey asks, her voice carrying through the emptiness around them.

“I don’t have one,” Ben answers flatly.

Silence. And then—

“Why are you on Jakku?”

Ben considers ignoring the question, but decides a half-truth won’t give away anything about himself that his wrecked ship already hadn’t. “It was the nearest habitable planet when my ship took damage.”

They walk for another twenty minutes or so, climbing over debris and squeezing through precarious holes of the ship’s wreckage. Ben’s injury aches with each strained movement, but he ignores it. He’s fought through worse.

“I think this will do,” Rey whispers, shining her light around them. Her beam all but disappears in the darkness; the walls around them are so high that her fragile torch cannot reach. She steps toward a wall, examining the metal closely. It’s welded into place, and would take a saw to pry it off. Rey isn’t deterred; she hands the torch to Ben and searches through her bag, withdrawing a crude blowtorch. She shakes the fuel canister a few times before releasing the valve. A few attempts at ignition later, and the torch erupts into life. Sensing Ben’s raised eyebrows, she spares him a single glance before pulling her goggles back over her face.

“Don’t get too close,” she warns.

It takes several passes of the blowtorch and almost an hour of hammering and pulling, but eventually the metal gives way.

“Right,” Rey says, wiping her brow with the back of her arm. “That should do.”

It’s an incredible effort to drag the panel out of the depths of the ship; it takes almost three times as long as Rey and Ben each have to stop to catch their breath from hauling such a cumbersome weight in the darkness, alternating their positions of pushing and pulling. When they finally reach the starship’s exhaust ports and can see broad strokes of daylight, relief washes over them.

The panel is secured to the land speeder with an assortment of nets and ropes; because they’re dragging it across the desert, Rey has to cut the speed of her vehicle in half so they don’t lose their cargo. By the time the two have returned to Ben’s ship, the sun is past its zenith and the lingering heat of day beats down on them with full force. In the east, the promise of relief grows closer with the approaching twilight.

Rey gestures that they should rest inside the AT-AT. Ben follows her willingly, exhausted from the work thus far.

They hadn’t even started on actual repairs.

The gutted AT-AT is mostly bare, but there are signs of inhabitance. A hammock hangs from the far corner, surrounded by personal effects. A makeshift kitchen sits directly ahead while a wall—covered in countless, purposeful lines—divides the space in two.

Rey sinks into her hammock, her feet hanging over the side. Ben leans against the opposite wall and allows himself to slide to the floor, stretching out his legs in front of him. Sweat has beaded on his forehead and trickles down his neck, and his tunic is stuck to him like a second skin. He shuts his eyes, sinking further into the floor.

It isn’t until much later, when he hears the distant sound of hammering, that Ben realizes he had fallen asleep in the heat. Rey had left him to rest while she began the preliminary work of stripping his ship of its damaged components.

Ben sat up slowly, rubbing the ache out of his neck and cracking the stiffness that had formed between his shoulders. His throat was raw with thirst, and he emptied his canister with several deep gulps before getting to his feet and meeting Rey outside.

The damaged wing had already been stripped to its bare skeleton while a pile of metal lay nearby.

“Some of it can be re-used,” Rey told him when Ben approached, wiping her brow with the back of her arm. “Just have to hammer out the dents and weld it back. You’ll need to replace most of the electrical—it’s completely fried.”

He glared at his ship with a dark expression.

“Who’s Luke?”

Ben jumped, turning to look at her. “What?”

She appeared to falter under his gaze. “You kept saying that name in your sleep.” She shrugged, the interest fading as fast as it had come.

Ben cleared his throat even as an icy barb pierced his heart, sending cold shivers down his spine. “How long?” He asked, deliberately changing the conversation.

Rey shrugged again, a dubious look on her face. “A few days, probably—I’m going to have to find a way to get the bolts down so the paneling doesn’t just tear off when you jump to hyper space.”

“There’s a repair kit in the cockpit,” Ben told her. “Powers up on the reserve fuel cells.”

Rey nodded, breathless in the heat. “Right. Well, that’s work for tomorrow.”

Ben looked sideways at her.

“We’ve got to head to Niima,” she explained, turning to march toward her land speeder. “If you want to eat tonight, that is.”

 

* * *

 

Rey was annoyed by the newcomer at first, and then only grew to mildly tolerate him. She didn’t like being bossed around by Unkar Plutt, let alone a stranger, no matter how much they paid. But to his credit, this stranger didn’t have a proclivity for conversation, and so Rey was able to tend to her work and routine without too much disruption.

She often caught herself stealing glances at him, whether at his fine but careworn clothes or the long scar on his cheek. He had refused to give Rey his name—or any other information about himself—and so Rey was left imagining the gaps. When she thought of the stranger, he was just called _Him_ in her head, or “you” if she spoke to him directly.

His ship was the most fascinating thing about him. Sleek and modern, it was unlike anything Rey had seen on Jakku. She ran her calloused palms over its surface first thing in the morning, before the metal was too hot to touch with bare skin. Rey was no engineering or mechanical expert, but she had pried apart enough Imperial ships to know this one was a modern successor. Whatever force had shorn paneling from the wing wasn’t the result of space weather, but this stranger was paying Rey enough not to really care.

She worked in near silence, aided by the stranger with only the occasional request or finger-pointing. After the first day, the man seemed to become accustomed to her routine, for he was handing her pieces of equipment or a tool before Rey could get the words out.

Early on the third day, they reached the first major roadblock.

“All of this is junk,” Rey explained, pointing out fried computer parts and wiring with a flashlight. It was early in the morning, too early for the sun to break over the horizon. Their breath hovered in misty clouds between them, crystalized in the cold desert night.

Next to her, the strange man ran a tired hand over his tired face.

“So what’s your suggestion?”

“There’s nothing in the shipyard,” Rey said. “You can try Unkar—but I think your best bet is going to be the old Observatory.”

“Fine.”

She hesitated, the flashlight hovering over the fried components before she switched it off.

“It takes a full day of travel to get there,” she began. “So we’ll have to pack food and water for the trip.”

“Sure.”

“And leave now, before it gets too hot to travel.”

Ben had already jumped off the damaged wing, his dark shape moving toward the AT-AT. “I’ll grab our things.”

Rey cleared her throat, twirling the flashlight nervously between her gloved hands. She watched as the man refilled their canteens and began stowing supplies in the cargo net of her land speeder.

“It won’t be like going to the shipyard,” she finally said, unsure of how to explain the Observatory’s reputation to this man—and more importantly, her reluctance to go.

He looked over his shoulder at her. Behind him, the sky was a gradation of purple and blue. “What do you mean?”

“It’s dangerous,” she said bluntly. “Or haunted. None of the other scavengers are willing to go there—they all say it’s rigged—designed to ambush anyone trying to get inside.”

It was too dark to make out her companion’s expression, but Rey could feel him watching her, listening.

“I’m sure I can find a way inside.”

Rey snorted, rolling her eyes at his confidence. “Okay,” she said skeptically. She sighed, weighing her words. “I’ll take you there…”

“You don’t have to come inside, so long as you’re willing to wait by the land speeder,” he said, turning back toward the AT-AT for his bag.

There was a moment of silence as Rey regarded him. She was certain he would be maimed if not killed trying to get into the Observatory like so many before him. Though she had been reluctant to work for him in the beginning, she had grown accustomed to his silent presence, and almost enjoyed working alongside him. She might even miss him if he died.

“If you don’t come back out in two days, I’m leaving you and keeping your ship,” she told him.

He actually let out a laugh at that. It was small, almost more of a chuckle, but it made Rey crack into a smile in return.

She jumped off the TIE wing, making a quick sweep of her AT-AT for supplies while the man searched through his own ship. Rey wrapped her headgear around her face and neck to protect herself from the cold—and later the grueling sun—before climbing onto the land speeder. When her companion had taken the space behind her, wrapping his long arms around her waist for stability, Rey turned over the ignition and took off for the infamous plateaus in the north. 


	3. A Daydream or a Fever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey agrees to take Ren to the Observatory. Ren discovers old Sith relics while the Force awakens in Rey.

It was late into the afternoon by the time they reached the Plaintive Hand Plateau, having stopped only to refuel the land speeder and take quick refreshment breaks. Rey drove though endless miles of sand before rocky outcroppings began to emerge, gradually growing taller and taller until they were deep in the Valley of the Eremite. The shade was a welcome relief as afternoon soon approached, bringing with it the relentless Jakku sun.

While it had been years since Rey had reluctantly traveled to the Observatory, she remembered the route’s landmarks well enough. She would follow the narrow valley until she spotted the ancient carvings worshipped by the Church of the Force—also known as the Plaintive Hand Plateau—turning east until the old temples and holy sites disappeared into unmarked mountain once more.

The valley soon gained elevation, transforming into a precariously narrow, rocky pass. Rey took the land speeder as far as it could go, cutting the engine about a hundred meters from the footpath that led up to the Observatory.

“Right,” she said, pulling her headgear away from her face as her companion climbed off the land speeder behind her. “Follow that trail there—it will take you up into the plateau. Keep going until you find a door in the rock wall. That’s the entrance.”

But he didn’t respond. He studied the walls around them, as though he could see something Rey couldn’t. Finally, he turned back to face her. “I’ll be back before the sun is down.”

Rey raised a skeptical eyebrow. She wanted to know where he found such confidence. “You know that this place is supposedly haunted,” Rey told him, looking up toward the sky, to the cragged edges of the plateau.

“What?”

“This used to be a holy site,” she explained. “The Church of the Force used to be here before the Empire kicked them out—what’s left of them are hermits in the desert, in Tuanul. They thought this place was sacred.”

“Where did you hear that?” He asked, bemused.

“An old hermit comes to Niima sometimes,” Rey said. “He used to tell me stories when I was a child, about this thing called the Force. He said that in their religion, the Force belonged to these heroes called Jedi. My favorite stories were about the hero Luke Skywalker—“

The man turned to look at her sharply, but Rey was too distracted by her reminiscing to notice.

“Lor told me Luke Skywalker was the greatest Jedi of all, and he vanquished this thing called the Dark side—that’s like the evil side of the Force—and brought peace to the galaxy.”

“Is that so.”

Rey caught the hard note in his voice. “They’re just stories,” she said, shaking her head. “If Luke Skywalker really defeated the Dark side, I don’t think I’d be stuck on Jakku, working for Unkar Plutt.”

The man had turned to face her, regarding her curiously.

“What?”

“You think it’s all made up? The Force?”

Rey snorted. “Of course it is. I mean—they’re just stories…. Why, _you_ don’t believe in it, do you?”

He shrugged, but the motion was entirely too stiff to pass for casual. “I think it was real. At one point.”

Her face screwed up. “Really?”

“You look surprised.”

“I wouldn’t have taken you for a religious man,” Rey told him.

He gave her a wry smile, resting one shoulder on the side of her land speeder. “The myths about the Jedi and Sith are certainly embellished,” he told her. “But the Force—the essence that exists between every living being—that’s certainly real.”

Rey studied his face as though she was seeing him for the first time. Outside of the occasional hints, this was the first solid fact about himself the stranger had offered to Rey. “What’s your name?” She asked, trying the question for a second time.

His brows knit together in a frown, his once relaxed expression cracking into a look of discomfort.

“So I know what to write on your memorial when you don’t come back,” Rey added in a half-joking tone.

He smiled at her, a slightly crooked grin that was entirely too cocky for their situation. “If it takes more than two days, then you can keep my ship,” he replied, echoing Rey’s threat from that morning. He began unloading equipment from the cargo net.

Rey watched him, unease growing inside her chest. Perhaps it was a trick of the heat, but the air felt electric, almost buzzing in the silence between them.

The nameless companion tossed his pack onto his back, absentmindedly wiping his hair from his brow as he adjusted the weight.

“By sunset,” Rey repeated, as though the words would ensure a safe journey. She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Be careful.”

He looked thrown by her concern, but the expression vanished as quickly as it came. He nodded once at her, meant to reassure, before turning on his heel and climbing up the steep path to the Observatory.

 

* * *

 

Ben knew there were abandoned facilities scattered across Jakku from the days of the Empire, old research bases and training camps, so he wasn’t entirely surprised when Rey mentioned an Observatory. What did surprise him was her reluctance to come within a hundred meters of the gate, citing rumors of danger and hauntings as a reason to stay away. Rey had struck him as practical and near-fearless, but he supposed every planet had its superstitions.

The gate gave way easily enough under his Force power, metal creaking as the doors opened for the first time in almost thirty years. Dust formed a cloud around the entrance, but Ben didn’t wait for it to dissipate as he stepped forward, his footsteps echoing in a cavernous room. His eyes took several moments to adjust to the low light, but when they did, they traveled over the mummified corpses of old Imperial soldiers and deprogrammed sentinel droids littered around their command posts, the last guards of Palpatine’s secret Observatory.

Ben withdrew his flashlight, shining it over the old computers. He pried open a wall covering, revealing a network of dusty wiring and computer chips. He pulled them out one by one, slipping the components into his pocket. They might be useful, but he would need far more advanced parts for his TIE.

He straightened up, shining his flashlight on the stone floor ahead of him. The floor was littered with broken data pads and upturned cargo carts, evidence of a hasty evacuation. Ben stepped over the debris, his eyes catching sight of another set of doors in the distance.

And on the doors…

Ben frowned, stepping forward, his flashlight trained on a network of brightly colored ropes woven over the door and wall like tree roots, surrounded by flowering stalks. As he got closer, he could see it was in fact organic material claiming the space, some kind of plant that had taken over the abandoned Observatory. Now only inches away, Ben shined his torch along the wall, his eyes traveling along twisting roots and flowering blooms. Twisted in the plant’s center was a shape, almost human-like in its silhouette.

He frowned, leaning forward.

“What the fuck…” he whispered under his breath.

Even as he watched, the vines pulsed and grew, twisting deeper into the concrete walls. Green and blue and red leaves opened up to sunlight they would never see; spiky, flowering blooms bursting forth in bizarre arrangements—different species from the same vine, spliced together. Pink twisted into orange, which soon turned into blue… It was beautiful and wild, and entirely unlike anything Ben had ever seen. It grew through the walls and computers, roots eventually twisting around old droids and the odd corpse, separating skull from body and limb from core…

His frown deepened as he held out his palm toward the plant-covered wall. The Force was pulsating, throbbing in the dark silence like a heartbeat.

Ben turned back over his shoulder, looking toward the skeletons of the old Imperial guards near the doorway.

What was Palpatine hiding here?

The second set of doors gave away just as easily as the first. Ben reached for his blaster, holding it solidly in one hand while the other held his flashlight aloft.

He had entered a corridor, wildly overgrown with the same bizarre plants, revealing doorways and dusty computer screens. Something like snow floated in the air, glittering in the light of his torch. Ben stepped forward carefully, the hair on the back of his neck standing up. There was no water, so sunlight, and no species to pollinate, but some bizarre mutation of nature had overtaken the Observatory, flourishing by some unknown force. Ben had never seen anything like it.

It creeped him out.

He reached an old command station, and was able to boot it up almost instantly. The lights flickered to life around him, half-obscured by overgrowth and dimly illuminating the corridors. The strange, snow-like dust twinkled around him, swirling and floating but never quite falling to the ground. Ben pocketed his flashlight but kept his blaster out. The only sound was the white noise of the lightbulbs and computers fired into activity after almost thirty years of silence.

The fire doors opened with ease when their buttons were pressed, leading to new segments of hallway. Entire computers had been stripped from their walls, old wires intertwined with brightly colored roots and flowers.

Ben ventured deeper into the Observatory before he found what he was looking for: the data library and server station. Several computers had been removed, but there were towers of servers standing abandoned, row after row of the Empire’s most advanced computer technology from the time. Ben made quick work to collect chips, wires, and other components, wrapping them carefully before stowing them away in his pack. The sooner he could get out of this creepy space, the better.

 

* * *

 

Outside, Rey found a flat stone to make herself comfortable, lying on her back and watching the cloudless sky overhead. The entire ravine was shaded from the blazing sun, silent except for the occasional sound of a desert mouse scurrying past.

Rey helped herself to one of her companion’s nutrition bars—she doubted he would mind much. They were dry and chewy—like biting into a mouthful of half-formed clay—but still better than the flavorless nutrient portions Unkar Plutt passed out as payment to all the scavengers.

She hadn’t heard any screams or the telltale sound of chaos, and so Rey surmised the man was able to enter the Observatory unharmed—a feat no other scavenger had achieved. She wasn’t sure what kind of dangerous booby traps surrounded the gates—no one had offered any details—but she imagined some kind of trip wire or high voltage was involved.

Would the man even have time to scream if something happened?

The thought drove through Rey’s heart like a spike.

What if something _had_ happened to him, and Rey was just lying here, completely oblivious? What if he was still alive but unable to call for help?

Rey sat up, her heart beating furiously. She looked up at the plateau high above her, her resolve torn in two. Half of her demanded to stay behind as agreed, but the other half couldn’t help but fear for her new friend.

It couldn’t hurt to just check, to make sure he had made it past the doors…

Rey swore loudly, jumping to her feet. She reached for her staff and ran up the narrow trail.

 

* * *

 

Something skittered in the space behind Ben. He jumped to his feet, crouched into a defensive stance with his blaster held high. There was nothing behind him except the corridor… he trained his ear, reaching out through the Force for the source of the disturbance. It was probably a desert mouse or a draft, but Ben knew better than to be anything less than vigilant in strange places.

He felt the pulsing heartbeat of the flowering roots breaking through the manmade walls, slowly claiming this space… he could distantly feel the presence of Rey, in the ravine far below… and then something else… something deeper in the heart of the Observatory…

Ben stepped forward, allowing himself to sink deeper into his connection with the Force. He had exited the data library and returned to the corridor, staring down its flickering halls toward another set of fire doors.

There was something beyond here, something significant…

Almost mindlessly, Ben stepped through the corridor toward the doors. Like the others, they opened easily at his command. He was being drawn toward something, something Palpatine had hidden and that had long been abandoned….

The corridor led to the Observation Deck, a circular room carved into the plateau. A winding staircase led to a series of telescopes and scanners overhead and a single human skeleton lay nearby, twisted up in the roots, but Ben’s gaze was fixated on a hole in the wall near the floor. Something had blasted through the stone, leaving a vine-covered tunnel behind.

Ben’s gaze fell to the floor, to an enormous latch made of durasteel and stamped with the emblem of the Empire. It had been both bolted and welded shut, as though whoever sealed it didn’t want anyone opening it again. Ben’s eyes traveled over the nearby skeleton and back to the hole in the wall, which appeared to lead directly beneath the durasteel cover.

An overwhelming urge to investigate flooded Ben’s veins, blocking out any logical thought. As if entranced, he stepped toward the mouth of the tunnel, covered in the same creeping roots as the rest of the Observatory. He dropped his blaster and his pack to the floor beside him.

There was something underneath the Observatory. And it wanted to show something to Ben.

 

* * *

 

When Rey reached the gates, she half expected to find Ben sitting there, devising a way to get in, or else lying dead in a pool of blood. She was surprised to find neither.

She hesitated, clutching a stitch in her side from exertion, as she stared at the open doors.

He had gotten inside after all.

Rey should have been relieved and turned back around, but her curiosity got the better of her. She had never heard of anyone making it past the gates. It couldn’t hurt to see what was inside…

Rey stepped forward, her staff gripped tightly before her. The room was dim—too dim to see. Rey squinted in the darkness, her eyes searching the floor for safe spaces to step. She yelped when she saw the skeleton of a human huddled to her right, bringing her staff down instinctively before her mind caught up to her. Whoever died had been dead for a very long time.

Rey tore her eyes away, looking around for where her wayward companion might have gone. In the gloom, faintly illuminated by bright lights in the distance, appeared to be another doorway, half-open. Rey walked toward it, her eyes catching the brilliant green of plant life all around her. She had never seen so much color on Jakku before. Rey hesitated in the doorway, her eyes drinking in the sight of vines, leaves of all shapes, and hundreds of different blooms weaving over the space around her, digging into the walls, floor, and ceiling. Rey reached out a tentative finger, touching the pale pink petals of a star-shaped blossom. It shrank into the safety of its sepals, which wrapped around itself tightly.

Entranced, Rey stepped through the doorway and found herself in an illuminated corridor. The plant life was even more plentiful here, wild and so _alive,_ unlike anything else on Jakku. Suspended in the air were twirling specks of dust, or perhaps flakes of debris, glittering and blinking in the light. Rey stepped forward, curious as to which direction her companion might have taken. She looked to her right and then to her left, considering. Around her, the lights flickered in and out, but she wasn’t scared.

Something—some unknown intuition—told her to turn right. Rey followed the corridor, pressing buttons to open fire doors as she went. Her eyes drank in the sight of all the computer components around her—a single wall had enough goods to feed her for a year. If any of the other scavengers ever made it in here, the entire place would take months to strip, maybe even years.

The corridor Rey entered had descended. The cool air made the hair on the back of her neck stand up, but the strange vines were covered in more brilliant blooms, as though leading the way. In Rey’s experience on crashed Starships, computer rooms were often kept in the heart of the ship; she was sure the data library in the Observatory would be the same.

The steps rounded a corner, revealing a room so large and so dark that Rey couldn’t see anything. She took a tentative step forward, and beneath her the floor rippled. Rey yelped, jumping backwards, but the staircase had gone. She was surrounded by the dark expanse of this strange cavernous room. She spun on her heel, searching for the exit, but the walls were invisible, an infinite length separating Rey from the exit.

Rey’s breath hitched in her throat as she took a few steps forward, echoing in the darkness. She could hear someone talking in the distance, their voice echoing around the space and making it impossible to pinpoint. Rey reached for her staff, holding it protectively in her hands.

“Who’s there?” She called, knowing somehow that she wasn’t alone.

Her voice echoed, carrying away until there was only silence.

Rey took another cautious step forward, her footsteps creating tiny ripples in the floor. Her eyes were wide and searching, desperate to see in the endless darkness. There was a vibration—higher and then lower, then higher again—almost like breathing. It was as if the room was suddenly alive and swallowed Rey whole, its guts churning and echoing in the darkness as Rey was consumed.

Then, appearing suddenly before her, was a shape. Unclear, but almost humanlike in its outline. Rey’s eyes narrowed, and she took a few tentative steps forward. There was a woman her same size on the opposite end of the room, crouched in the same defensive stance.

“Who are you?” Rey demanded. But as she spoke, she realized this person had no face—no discernible features. In fact, it was only human in shape, its skin dark and shiny, and mirroring the space around it.

Rey adjusted her grip on her staff, and the person—alien, object, whatever it was—did the same. Rey took a step to the side, and the thing did too.

She held her staff up in warning. “Who are you?” She repeated.

The creature was mirroring her, Rey realized. She lowered her staff slowly, and held up her left hand, wiggling her fingers. So did the creature.

Rey took a cautious step forward, and the creature did, too. Rey snapped her fingers and clapped her hands quickly, expecting the creature to have trouble keeping up, but it followed her movements effortlessly, mirroring Rey in real time.

Rey looked around herself for an exit, but the space seemed to continue on into infinity. She took a deep breath, her eyes fixated on the silvery creature before her, and bolted.

She thought she could put distance between them, but the creature caught up to her immediately, smashing hard into her back and pinning her to the ground. Panicking, Rey struggled to push herself up, but the creature pressed down harder, trapping her. Its hands were secured over hers, its legs following Rey’s, and its faceless head resting on Rey’s ear. She couldn’t breathe. Rey tried to scream, to roll the creature off of her, but it was too strong. In seconds her lungs were crushed, her breathing cut off, and the world blurred.

Rey came to a few seconds later, gasping for air. Her eyes focused on the face before her—her face—and she screamed. Rey shot to her feet unsteadily, but so did her mirror image.

She was looking at herself, flesh and blood. Rey recognized the disheveled hair, the freckled skin, and briefly wondered if she had left her own body somehow. She reached a hesitant hand forward, and so did the woman before her. Her fingertips were warm, calloused, just like Rey’s. Rey’s eyes fell to the black shining floor toward her staff, and slowly looked back up at this creature that had taken on her appearance.

Slowly, not daring to remove her gaze, Rey picked up her staff. Her mirror image, though weaponless, followed her movements with a calm but curious expression. Rey straightened up again, holding out her free hand slowly. Her twin regarded her curiously, mirroring the movement. Then, hoping the creature was distracted, Rey struck it sharply across the head. Undeterred, it mimicked her behavior and hit back, sending Rey to the ground, stunned.

 

* * *

 

The tunnel was dark, just high enough to stand in and covered in the same bizarre twisting roots as the hallways above. But despite being unable to see, Ben knew the layout of the tunnel. It sloped down, just below the seal overhead, and emptied into a space no bigger than a conference room on the _Finalizer._ And there, in the very center, was the beating heart Ben had sensed upstairs.

It was an orb of energy, pulsating shadow swirling around a bright center. It was like the dark eye of some unseen energy, watching him. Ben stepped forward, at a complete loss of control over his own body, and even his mind. The eye—or perhaps it was a mouth—focused on his approach, its center glowing brighter with each step. Then, like some flower suddenly blooming, the shadowy arms retracted to reveal a blinding white light at its center.

Unable to breathe, Ben fell to his knees. The orb grew brighter, expanding until it filled the space around him. Ben was blinded, frozen in place. He wasn’t sure if his heart was still beating and his lungs still breathing, but none of that seemed to matter, anymore. He was going to be consumed, his energy carefully siphoned and given over to the universe. His hatred, pain, and rage all bubbled up to the surface, ready to be extracted. He wouldn’t be dead; he would simply enter the cosmic machine and, without his power, finally be at peace.

Then, as quickly as it revealed itself, the light went dark, plunging the tunnel into complete shadow.

Ben fell forward, gasping for breath. The release over his senses had been sharp and sudden, allowing Ben’s mind to flood with panic. He felt the familiar darkness creeping through his veins like a poison, the unbearable fire and ice that threatened to pull him under.

“ _No,_ ” he gasped, forcing himself to his feet. It was impossible to see in the darkness, but Ben began feeling his way for the tunnel walls, fingers pulling against twisted roots, determined to break free before the Dark got a hold on him.

Then, in the shadows, a familiar pale face appeared, illuminated by some unseen light. It was hideously disfigured, scarred and twisted into a sneer. Ben stumbled back, reaching for his lightsaber, but he was weaponless.

Defenseless.

“My dear _apprentice_ ,” it crooned, the familiar voice of the Supreme Leader echoing all around Ben. An invisible hand reached out in the darkness, its fingertips tracing Ben’s face. Ice plunged through his veins as the cold wrapped around him, dragging him back into the deepest holds of the Darkness.“We’ve been looking for you…”

Ben tried to scream, but no voice came out. He grabbed for a root for purchase, but the tunnel’s vines had given way to smooth floor. Ben reached out blindly, grasping desperately for any shred of the Force, but it was gone. He was alone.

“Did you believe you could break away from me?” The Supreme Leader asked, a chuckle echoing in the space around them, mocking and cruel. The invisible hand on his neck tightened into a fist, pinning Ben against the shining black floor of the Supreme Leader’s throne room. “Did you think I would be finished with you?”

Ben pried at the fingers around his throat, struggling to break free. Snoke towered over him, his hideous face twisted into a sneer. Behind them, the red-armored Praetorian Guard watched in silence.

“Or, perhaps, you thought I was wrong,” Snoke continued, kneeling over Ben. He reached out with one pale hand, his gnarled finger tracing along Ben’s scar. “Perhaps… you thought you could be saved…”

The invisible hand around Ben’s throat jerked him forward, slamming him bodily into the floor. Ben’s mouth filled with the taste of blood and he choked, spitting onto the floor.

“Foolish child!” Snoke hissed, full of disdain. “Do you think they would take you back? After everything I gave you… everything I made you to be… and still you cling to them.” He walked in a wide circle around Ben. “No one is coming for you—no one can save you from the Darkness, from your destiny… you _will_ bow to me!”

 _No,_ Ben thought desperately. This couldn’t be happening again—this couldn’t be real—

“And now,” Snoke continued, full of cruel excitement. “You will give me everything…”

A blinding pain tore through Ben’s skull as the Supreme Leader barged into his mind. Every nerve in his body was electric, his bones splitting and blood boiling as the fire consumed him… in his final moments he reached out desperately for anything to help him. Suddenly the darkness was pierced by a spitting red blade. Above him, the Supreme Leader’s laugh was cut short as the lightsaber pierced his heart.

_Ben, no!_

Ben jerked awake, suddenly brought back to the present. It took his brain several moments to process his surroundings, because he wasn’t where he last remembered being. The fire was gone, the pain receding from his mind… he could have sworn he heard Luke’s voice, speaking to him from afar…

Slowly his eyes found Rey’s face, white and stricken.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” she gasped, breathless. Her fists were latched on to the front of his tunic as she half-led, half-dragged him upright. She was kneeling beside him in the Observatory.

Not the tunnel.

Ben looked over his shoulder to the place where he knew the hole should be, but it was only wall and twisted root. The entrance was gone.

“Come on!” Rey shouted, yanking on Ben’s arm.

His heart was pounding furiously in his ears. Ben got to his feet uncertainly, searching the room wildly. “Where is he?” He gasped.

Rey, already halfway out the door with Ben’s pack in her hands, looked back. “What?”

Ben dug his palms into his temples, trying to make sense of it all even as the dream was fading from memory… There had been a tunnel, and darkness, and then—

“There’s something under here,” Ben muttered, dropping his hands suddenly and staring at the seal beneath his feet.

“There’s a lot of things here, and none of them good,” Rey insisted, stepping back and reaching for his arm. “Let’s _go_!”

Ben found her gaze, and recognized that she must have seen something, too. The absolute terror on her face helped bring Ben back to his senses. He took one last dark look at the seal beneath them before following Rey out of the Observatory.

They ran through the corridors, slamming on buttons to open fire doors, jumping over debris and twisted roots as they made a wild dash for the exit. An invisible force let out a shuddering sigh, blowing Ben and Rey off their feet and through the Observatory’s gates. They landed on the rocky ground as the doors slammed shut with an ominous echo behind them. Overhead, the sky had faded into a wash of periwinkle.

Rey scrambled away, tangled in the pack. Ben helped her to her feet and she was already half-dragging him back down the darkened ravine.

“There’s something in there,” she gasped, tears staining her dusty cheeks. “Something that wanted me—“

“How did you find me?” Ben asked, bewildered, looking over his shoulder toward the Observatory. Rey dragged him down the path, around a corner, and the gates were suddenly out of sight.

Perhaps he was still in shock, but he could feel the Force pulsing wildly between them, an erratic staccato. He could still feel the Supreme Leader’s fingers digging into his throat. The sudden discharge of the lightsaber’s blade pierced his mind’s eye as surely as it pierced the Supreme Leader…

A violent shiver erupted down Ben’s spine.

Rey’s eyes found his, wide and uncertain. She shook her head, her gaze faltering. “I don’t know—I can’t explain it.” She turned on her heel again, half-dragging Ben down the path. She collapsed when they reached the land speeder, a sob escaping her chest. “We have to leave,” she gasped.

Ben, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he tried to catch his breath, looked up toward the plateau above. From here, the danger seemed miles away, the Dark side of the Force cut off by the heavy gates. He reached out for the Force, willing his mind to clear as he centered himself. Where the world had once been dark and chaotic, it was suddenly still.

Oriented.

His stomach lurched at the sudden change, but he forced himself to be still, to wait until the nausea passed and he could think clearly. Next to him was a flicker of light, soft and warm. His eyes drifted toward her, as though opened for the first time. In that moment, he knew…

Ben let out a shaky breath, bending down so he was level with Rey. He placed a hand on her shoulder, his other reaching for her face to make her look at him. He tried to be gentle with her, but his voice was still forceful. “What happened? What did you see?”

Her eyes found his, wide and uncertain. “I just had this…feeling. It was like something was trying to tell me you were in danger.” She shook her head, closing her eyes against the memory. “It’s stupid—“

“It’s not stupid,” Ben assured her.

“I went up to the gates, thinking I was going to find you sitting there, looking for a way in like everyone else.” She shook her head again, a crease between her brows as she recalled the memory. “But the gates were open… and something—this feeling—made me think I should go inside. Like I wasn’t in control of myself… It was like a dream…the most beautiful colors I’ve ever seen…I followed it inside, deeper and deeper. I wasn’t scared then, I wasn’t even myself—it was like I was floating.”

Ben’s frown deepened by her description, as it was the exact same sensation he had felt when the Force beckoned him closer.

“There was this dark room—you wouldn’t believe me if I told you—“

“That’s not true,” Ben replied sharply.

“There was this _thing_ in there,” Rey struggled to say. She ran a shaking hand over her eyes and took a deep breath, pulling away from Ben. “It wasn’t human, but it was human shaped. It was copying me—or studying me. If I moved, it moved. I tried to run, but—“ she took another steadying breath. “It looked like me. _Just like me._ Like a mirror, but flesh and blood… I couldn’t outsmart it…”

Ben was disturbed. “How did you get away?”

She scoffed, wiping the heel of her hand against her cheek. “I don’t know,” she said thickly. “It was like… waking up. Something inside me,” she added, pressing a palm to her chest. Her eyes found Ben’s in the dim light. “Something that’s always been there… it just took over, and suddenly I knew how to fight this thing off, and I knew exactly where to find you…” Her eyes cleared as though she was seeing Ben for the first time. “What happened to you?”

An icy shiver passed over Ben for the split second he thought about Snoke’s face in the darkness.

“It was so dark,” Rey continued, her brows knit together in consternation. “You were surrounded by darkness…”

Ben swallowed the lump in his throat, looking away. “You’re right—we should go.”

He tried to stand up, but Rey grabbed his arm sharply. “I know you know,” she said. “I can see it in your eyes…”

Ben tried to shake her off. “Perhaps the locals were right, and this place really is haunted—“

“Tell me!” She hissed, latching onto the front of Ben’s tunic with her full weight. Tears were forming in the corners of her eyes. “Tell me what’s happening to me…”

Ben took her hands in his and gently pried them off. But he didn’t push her away. He looked into her face, only inches away, and found it full of fear and uncertainty, and worse still—like he was the only thing in the galaxy that could save her.

“You don’t have to be afraid,” he told her, his voice not much more than a whisper. “That thing you feel inside you—that force of light and dark—it exists everywhere in the galaxy, connecting every living thing on a level that we can’t see. And only some of us can feel.”

Rey’s eyes were searching. Night was approaching, casting them into shadow. “Can you feel it, too?”

Ben swallowed, then nodded. “Yes. Since I was very young.”

She relaxed a fraction of an inch at that.

“What is it?”

Ben took a deep breath, letting it out through his nose. He thought back to his own childhood, to his earliest memories of his mother explaining what the Force was, and how it was a special bond between all living beings in the galaxy, but that some people were chosen to wield it. He had been terrified back then, perhaps almost as terrified as Rey was now. He squeezed Rey’s hand in his, wanting to comfort her but feeling terribly out of place in doing so.

“The Force,” he told her. “Like in those stories you heard growing up. You wield it, too.”

 

 


	4. The Dark Side and the Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren and Rey discuss the Force and what lies beneath the Observatory. On the way back to the AT-AT, they find Finn.

Deep in the halls of the _Finalizer,_ a young Ben stood at attention with four others beside him: Aayla and Darin, and two others who were here from before… they were given food and showers, clean jumpsuits and a bed… But more importantly, Hux explained to them, they were given protection and a destiny.

Aayla and Darin were younger than Ben and looked to him for guidance. He would have to put on a strong face for them, especially after they had stood up for him against Luke’s other students… they had helped save his life, and he had led them here… he would have to protect them, assure them that Snoke could make them so much more than Luke ever could…

The trials had been simple enough at first. Preparation, Hux called it. They were all injected with various polymers and enzymes designed to enhance their bodies’ natural abilities to turn over cells, to replicate and heal and evolve… baseline data were taken, and before the week was over Hux had a specialized training protocol laid out, just for the three of them.

“What about the others?” Darin had asked, referring to the two young children that arrived just before them. They hadn’t been seen in two days.

“Don’t worry about the others,” Hux told them sharply. “They’re not as strong as you. You’re special. And I can make you stronger.”

They were dead, Ben knew. He could hear the thought in Hux’s head as clearly as if the older man had spoken it. Aayla and Darin both looked to him for assurance.

Ben gave them a small smile, nodding. _It was okay,_ he seemed to say. _Everything would be okay._

 

* * *

 

“Will you tell me your name?”

Ben sighed. It was that question again.

They were sitting against the land speeder, huddled around a fire for warmth as they waited for the night to pass. It was too dangerous to navigate out of the ravine in the darkness, and so they were forced to wait until daybreak to leave the Plaintive Hand Plateau. Ben’s mind was on fire with the nightmarish images the Darkness had shown him, but Rey refused to leave him to contemplate the vision in peace.

She had a thousand questions, and demanded answers to all of them. Each explanation muddied the waters more, and Rey was determined to understand this new thing that had awoken inside of her.

He looked up at her across the fire. She was huddled against her land speeder, a blanket wrapped around her wiry shoulders.

Waiting.

He considered the question, wondering how he had become so entangled with this girl in only a few days. Was it coincidence? Or destiny?

He swallowed, resigning himself to the truth. It couldn’t hurt at this point, not after everything Rey already knew about him.

“Ben.”

“Ben?”

“Yes.”

There was a long silence after that. “Ben,” she repeated to herself. She nodded approvingly. “I like that. Who gave it to you? Your parents?”

A sharp vice seized Ben’s heart, squeezing it like a fist before letting go. “I was named after an old friend of my mother’s family,” he told her, his voice flat and business-like in his attempt to keep the pain and anger out of it.

“Did they have the Force, too?” Rey asked. “Your parents?”

“My mother did—does,” Ben corrected himself. “But she doesn’t use it.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged, not entirely sure of the answer himself. He thought back to his childhood, to the way his mother would watch in silence as Ben stretched his powers benignly—lifting rocks, freezing raindrops… and then there was the stony mask she wore, the one she used to cover up her terror when Ben’s powers drifted into more dangerous territory. She stepped over shattered glass and broken furniture one nightmare after the next, taking Ben into a different room as she shut the door behind them. She never acknowledged the mess, but Ben could sense her fear, the way she wished she could shut the door on the growing darkness inside of him the same way she shut the door on the mess, or on Han leaving once again… leaving her to handle their son all alone…

“Does that mean my parents have it, too?”

Ben snapped out of his reverie. “Not necessarily,” he said, unsticking his throat. “There’s no consistency to it… some bloodlines are Force-sensitive from one generation to the next, and other times the ability manifests on its own, cropping up in an otherwise ordinary family…” He thought for a moment, studying Rey across the fire. “All this time, you never knew?”

“I thought the Force was a myth,” Rey confessed. “Just some stories kids grow up on…”

“You never… felt it?” Ben continued, unsure of how to phrase his question.

Rey shook her head. “No. Not until today.” She rubbed fingertips against her chest absentmindedly. “It was like being asleep—only I didn’t know I was sleeping until I woke up…”

Ben’s thoughts drifted toward a dark place, full of haughty faces and cold rooms filled with people just like him, snatched up from their homes to prepare for their destiny… It came to him in pieces, bits of memory that defied time and lingered on the periphery of his mind, reminding him that he, too, had once been asleep for a very long, long time…

“Do you think that something in the Observatory did this?”

Her question brought him back to the present. The memory of the cold rooms and the terrible faces retreated back into the darkness.

He thought of the Observation Deck, of the darkness hiding far below. Ben shook his head. “You would have always had the Force, if that’s what you’re asking. Since you were born. It was just… lying dormant this whole time.”

“So then are the Jedi real? The Jedi and the Sith?”

“They were, once,” Ben answered. “They’re extinct. Killed off.”

“But what about Luke Skywalker?”

“What about him?”

“Is he real?”

Ben hesitated for a split second; but in that second a thousand emotions tore through him like strafing fire until there was nothing left behind. “Skywalker the person is real,” he answered, trying to keep his tone neutral. “But the legends are just that… legend.”

“And he’s a Jedi?”

“I suppose so.”

“Have you ever met him?”

Ben rubbed a hand over his face tiredly. He suddenly felt a hundred years old, full of tired bones, and memories, and regrets. “No,” he lied.

They were silent a moment, each lost in their own thoughts. Rey’s, it appeared, had traveled back to the Observatory. “What do you think that thing was?” She asked.

Ben’s eyes were still shut as he rested his head in the palm of his hand. He didn’t even know where to begin. It was clear to him what was lurking beneath the Plaintive Hand, but he didn’t know how to explain it to Rey without opening the floodgates to more personal questions, questions about his own motivations and past… He couldn’t open that gate, not ever, without running the risk that he wouldn’t be able to stop all of the awful things that would come tumbling out. “It doesn’t sound like any creature I’ve heard of—“

“But it _was_ a creature,” Rey interrupted. “I didn’t imagine it—I even have the bruises from where it hit me…and you do, too,” she added, her fingertips reaching toward the marks on Ben’s neck.

He jerked away from her hand, trying to shut out the image of Snoke that flashed in his mind’s eye. “My guess,” he continued heavily, knowing it wasn’t a guess at all. “And this is just a guess—is that it was a manifestation. Of the Dark side of the Force.”

Rey looked at him blankly. “A what?”

They were teetering on dangerous territory. Ben glanced at his canvas pack beside him, as though the object buried inside would suddenly reveal itself.

“You know what the Sith and the Jedi are… well, a long time ago, each side would make these artifacts. They were called relics. They would channel Dark or Light energy into these relics, and they worked like a sort of…amplifier,” he struggled to explain. “So when a Dark side user or a Light side user came along later, this relic could make them more powerful. But the relics often have a mind of their own, and sometimes they can be much stronger than the Force user attempting to wield it.”

Rey frowned. “What do they look like?”

“Well, the relics themselves are just objects—usually ancient artifacts, like spell books, amulets, consecrated weapons… really anything can be turned into a relic.”

“So there’s a consecrated…blaster rifle,” Rey began. Ben almost smiled wryly at her example. “Somewhere in the Observatory. And it sensed you and me…because of the Force. And it…made us lose our minds?”

Ben considered her words. Some wild part of him was tempted to share his full knowledge of what was beneath the Observatory and what it meant, but the risk would be tantamount to suicide. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “That’s basically it.”

Rey hesitated. “I still don’t get it.”

Ben scratched his head as he thought of another way to explain and yet not explain. “The Force is like an energy field—a living thing. Like life and death, there’s a dark side and a light—too much of one creates chaos. Instability. The Dark side can give limitless power, but it can also take immeasurable energy in kind—twisting and corrupting the life source that feeds it. It can manifest in visions…powers…a sort of half-dream where you’ll forsake all else just to feed that Dark power more. The relic is like a drug if the Dark side is an addiction.”

Rey was staring at him. “Why would _anyone_ want that?”

Ben’s throat tightened. He kept his eyes trained on her so he wouldn’t see the cold rooms and long hallways he had come to fear. “It’s not so black and white.”

She raised an eyebrow, skeptical. 

“Everyone has light and dark—the Force is light and dark. The Light can be just as dangerous as the Dark—“

“How?”

“It’s sterile,” he replied flatly. “A zero-sum game where the practitioner cuts off the parts of themselves that might tempt them toward the Dark—they cut off what makes them alive. The ultimate aspiration of a Jedi is to be one with the Light side of the Force… a shell, unable to be touched by anger, sadness… but also by love and compassion…”

Ben forced himself to look away from Rey’s astonished gaze. A vice was closing in around his heart, squeezing. It hurt to breathe.

“The good news is, you don’t have to pick,” he added bitterly. “The Jedi and Sith are extinct. You can just…exist. As you want to be.”

“How do you know all this?” Rey asked quietly. “About the Force? Did you have a teacher? Was it your mother?”

Ben shook his head, careful to turn away from Rey. “I had a few teachers—long ago. None of them stuck.”

“Why?”

The memory of a training exercise—of red sabers and dark energy and a long, windowed wall shielding a cruel man with red hair—shot through Ben like lightning. He sighed exasperatedly. It was too much. “I think that’s enough about me.”

Rey was taken aback by that. “What do you mean? You haven’t told me anything about yourself other than your name—“

“And that’s more than most people know—“

Her brown eyes narrowed. “What, you don’t trust me by now? I haven’t said a word about you in Niima—I repaired your ship—I _saved_ your life—“

“And I’m very grateful,” Ben interrupted stiffly. “But—“

“But nothing—“

“Do _you_ trust anyone?” Ben interjected, turning the questioning around on her.

She was defensive, now. “That’s different—“

“Hardly. It’s for survival, isn’t it? Well, it’s the same with me.”

She glared at him. Behind her, the first light of dawn was approaching. “I trust you. Mostly.”

He snorted. Was she playing a trick? “You shouldn’t—“

“So, what, then? We go back to your ship, you leave, and then we both live the rest of our lives like we never saw each other?”

“What would you have me do?”

She was angry now. It flickered white hot, igniting through her core like a wildfire. Ben could feel her in the Force, a blazing light among shadow. Even as they sat, waiting, her powers in the Force grew.

It was worrying.

“I was fine until you came—until _this—_ “ she said, gesturing toward her chest with an indignant finger. “—happened. And you have it, too—I don’t know anyone else—“ Her eyes began to well with frustrated tears. “You have to help me—“

He tore his gaze away, forcing a mental barrier between them. Her emotions were crashing into him, drowning him—he could barely keep oriented. “We’re not friends—I don’t owe you anything—“

She leapt to her feet, letting the blanket fall to the ground. She fixed him with such an acidic glare that Ben felt himself shrink before her.

“You owe me your life.”

Irritation flared in the pit of his stomach. So she was going to play dirty… “Then how do you want to be repaid?” He snapped.

“Take me off Jakku.”

Her answer was immediate and firm. Ben was caught off guard by the demand, and the shock of it withered his anger. “What?”

“Take me off Jakku—“

Ben’s brows knit together. Her demand was absurd. “To where?”

She let out a heavy breath. He could feel her rage subsiding as quickly as it flared, but she kept up her mask of conviction. “Home.”

He frowned. “It’s not Jakku?”

Rey snorted, rolling her eyes. “ _No._ Not this junkyard… Onderon.”

Ben stared at her. He suddenly found himself curious about Rey, about this strange desert scavenger tucked out of sight in Jakku with the Force inside her. “Then why are you here?” He asked.

Something painful flitted across her face. “I was left here,” she said in clipped tones. She didn’t want him to see her pain, but he could feel it in waves. “When I was very young. There was an emergency at home and my parents fled, but it wasn’t safe, so they brought me here, and they’re going to come back for me…”

Her voice trailed off weakly.

“Anyway,” she added, clearing her throat. “I’ve been waiting for them since.”

Something like sympathy creeped through Ben’s heart as he considered Rey’s words. He could feel all of her unspoken feelings, her cloying sense of loss and abandonment, the fear that if no one had returned by now, were they ever going to? It weighed on his chest like a stone, heavy and cold and laced with unbearable anger.

He could sympathize.

“So why haven’t you left?” He asked.

“Well, I can’t,” she said defensively, crossing her arms. “D’you think this land speeder will get me into space?” She shook her head, squaring her jaw. “Take me to Onderon. And then we’re square. It’s basically a life for a life, isn’t it?”

Ben did not consider himself an honorable man. There was too much darkness in his past. But Rey’s willingness to believe that he _was_ honorable—that he was someone who kept promises and returned life debts—was alluring. But the lightness that arose in his chest at this knowledge quickly sank again, filling up with darker musings about what awaited in the far reaches of the galaxy for people like Rey…

People like him.

He got to his feet, sighing. He hoped he wouldn’t regret this. “Fine.”

With a have of his hand, the fire was extinguished. He ignored the stunned look on Rey’s face, and said, “We should get going. The sun’s coming up.”

He reached for his pack, which suddenly felt twenty pounds heavier in his grip. The tiny crystal relic, stored carefully inside, was humming as though forcefully charged. Ben cast a dark look toward the Observatory before throwing his pack into the cargo net with everything else.

The humming stopped and the air was suddenly silent.

 

* * *

 

The drive through the Plaintive Hand Plateau was long and tedious. The only saving grace was the roar of the engine and the wind in their ears—Rey couldn’t shout loud enough to make her questions heard, which meant Ben would have a few hours of silence to think.

He had spent a lot of the past few weeks thinking, and it never seemed to be enough.

The creature in the Observatory—as Rey put it—was clearly a manifestation of something much more sinister underneath. Ben strongly suspected a Sith relic of some kind, but he couldn’t be certain unless he observed it directly. Whatever it was, it had allowed the Dark side to fester, growing beyond even his own abilities to control it. He shook his head, trying to rid his mind’s eye of Snoke’s pale, twisted face, leering at him from the shadows. The First Order must not know about it, otherwise they would be down there with drills and machines to extract every last bit of Dark energy deep below the planet’s surface.

They stopped occasionally for water or to refuel the land speeder, neither exchanging many words in the grueling heat. Ben had borrowed one of Rey’s long linen shawls to cover his head, and it stuck to him like a second skin.

Then, when they were perhaps only an hour from the crossroads into Niima, Rey suddenly pointed. Ben, who had been preoccupied with thoughts of his relic and his damaged ship, turned to look.

There, in the distance, was a dark figure. Or a few dark figures, really, bearing down on something moving like a wounded animal in the sand.

Wordlessly, Rey adjusted the land speeder so they were heading directly toward the commotion. Before he could see it, Ben could sense three scavengers and an unwitting traveler who had fallen prey. They were advancing on him, preparing to cannibalize him.

Rey brought the speeder within meters of the group, jumping off with her staff in hand. “Hey!” She yelled, grabbing their attention. She swung her staff around, holding it out threateningly. “ _Gorud quart at sad_?”

_What are you doing with him?_

The scavenger trio rounded on Rey, their own weapons out.

While Ben was certain Rey could protect herself—might even scoff at his protection—he still reached for the blaster on his hip, keeping his dark eyes trained on the group before them.

They exchanged a few more words, quickly devolving into profanity and threats, before Rey swung her staff in warning.

“Let him go!”

The nearest scavenger raised his spear, preparing to gut Rey, and Ben didn’t hesitate to shoot him squarely in the head. He dropped instantly, and the other two jumped over each other to rush them. Ben fired the second shot at the blaster-wielding scavenger, and took down the third for good measure.

Rey whipped around.

“Was that necessary?” She demanded.

Ben rolled his eyes. He pointed his blaster lazily at the unconscious figure in the sand, the one the scavengers had been attacking. “They were going to eat him.”

Rey shouldered her staff, marching through the sand toward the unconscious man. “And how do you know that?” She shouted over her shoulder.

Ben didn’t bother answering her question. He watched her fuss over the man on the ground. “What are you doing?”

“We’ve got to get him out of the sun,” Rey called, marching back toward the speeder for her water canteen. “He’ll die of exposure.”

Ben dismounted the land speeder and followed Rey’s footsteps toward the stranger. He was young—younger than himself, but perhaps older than Rey—and covered in swaths of dark fabric. Ben’s eyes lingered over the boots and dropped blaster rifle, recognizing them immediately.

He withdrew his blaster and raised his arm to shoot, but before his finger could pull on the trigger, Rey slapped his hand out of the way.

“What are you doing?” She hissed, her eyes wide with shock.

“What are _you_ doing?” Ben countered, rounding on her. “Do you even know who he is?”

“No,” Rey bit back. “I find it’s easier to learn about someone by not shooting them—“

There was no time for this. If there was one, there would be others to follow. “Come on,” he said, reaching for Rey’s arm. “We need to move.”

“But what about him?” She protested, water canteen still clutched in her hand.

“He’s not our problem—“

“We can’t just leave him!”

Ben half-turned to glare at the unconscious Stormtrooper. He had half a mind to shoot him anyway, but he doubted whether Rey would let him hear the end of it if he did. “We can’t take him with us—“

“It’s _my_ house—“

Ben was exhausted, hot, and aching. He hated Jakku, he hated the desert, and he absolutely hated how long it was taking to fix his ship. Most of all, he hated the delay in his mission. He grabbed Rey’s shoulder and turned her to face him. “He’s a Stormtrooper,” he hissed.

Rey’s eyes widened. She looked sideways at the unconscious man and back to Ben. “How do you know?”

“Look at his boots.”

Rey did. “So?”

Ben rolled his eyes. “So they’re First Order issue. So is that blaster. Do you really want to invite the First Order into your home?”

Rey hesitated. “We can’t just leave him to die,” she said stubbornly.

Ben could have ripped out his hair.

“You don’t want to interfere with the First Order,” he warned her. “You don’t want to talk to them, look at them—“

“I know who they are!” She interrupted sharply. She groaned, running a hand through the folds of her head wrap. “How about we just take him to Niima? Leave him there. If there’s one Stormtrooper, there will be others—they can find him there—“

Ben pinched the bridge of his nose. This was one nightmare after another.

He couldn’t take the Stormtrooper to Niima—they would ask questions, and gossipers would tell the First Order that the trooper had been brought in by a stranger—a stranger with a crashed elite ship and tons of money who hired the area’s best mechanic, who also happened to fit the description of a certain fugitive… The First Order wouldn’t hesitate to investigate.

He was furious he couldn’t just shoot the Stormtrooper, as that was the best option all around.

As Ben stared down at the unconscious figure, he couldn’t help but wonder _why_ there was a single foot soldier way out here in the desert. There were no active First Order training bases on Jakku, no places for a soldier to have escaped from… Not to mention all his armor was missing, and he appeared to be without any supplies, even a drinking canteen…

This soldier had fled, and quickly.

But from what?

“We’ll take him with us,” Ben finally decided, a heavy weight that felt like his own impending execution pressing down on him.

Rey looked at him, squinting in the bright afternoon light. “Is that safe?”

He rounded on her. “You wanted to save him!”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine!”

“Fine!”

They glared at each other for a moment before silently bending down, Ben at the head and Rey at his feet, working to drag the unconscious Stormtrooper toward the land speeder. It was lucky Ben was as tall and strong as he was—there was no way Rey would have gotten a fully grown man onto the back of the vehicle by herself.

“Right,” Ben said, breathless as he rubbed the sore spot on his side—the fracture was struggling to heal. “Let’s go before we can find more trouble.”

 

* * *

 

Jakku was a junkyard, too worthless to be of much notice to any of the powers in the galaxy, but the First Order made enough appearances to have stuck in Rey’s memory. Often they used Jakku as a rendezvous point— and sometimes they were searching for someone—but each time those gleaming space ships showed up in Niima outpost Rey stayed away, even if it meant going hungry for a few days. The officers were mean-spirited—there was no other way to describe it. They spoke disdainfully about what a “shit hole” Jakku was, mocking the locals and demanding tobacco and drink, refusing to pay for the precious resources every time. There were rumors that they took their fill of more disturbing past times, paying Unkar Plutt for the company of whichever slave girls and boys he had imprisoned nearby.

Unkar Plutt, for his part, was clearly intimidated by the soldiers but played the part of affable host all the same, tripping over himself to meet every demand made by the First Order.

Then, of course, there was the talk—the stories and gossip that circulated through Niima and into Tuanul, the Goazon Badlands, and Cratertown. Stories about the First Order’s exploits throughout the galaxy, conquering one planet after the next in the Outer Rim, threatening the order and stability set up by the New Republic… The old Tuanul hermit had told Rey the First Order was the remnants of the Empire, survivors who fled into the Outer Rim and worked to rebuild Sheev Palpatine’s vision of total control, led by the mysterious Supreme Leader and his vicious hound, Kylo Ren…

Ben had asked Rey to keep everything she knew about him, the Force, and the Observatory to herself. Rey had rolled her eyes at him, but agreed nonetheless; she wasn’t about to mess up her chances at leaving Jakku once and for all.

As the hours passed and the stranger slept in her AT-AT, Rey kept her mind busy with thoughts about Onderon—she would be dropped off in her childhood home of Iziz, perhaps seeking out old neighbors, or even the neighborhood teacher.

Someone would have to know what had happened to her parents.

Rey wondered if she would be able to find her old house—she remembered the look of the neighborhood, but not its name. It was full of narrow, uneven streets made of red bricks from the nearby river. The houses sat above cramped shops, tall stone structures leaning crookedly over the road below. Children often played in the street—games of marbles, sticks, and _tap taqieh_ were common. Modified land speeders carried produce, cloth, medicines, and other valuables from the rail lines and shipyards into the Iziz neighborhoods.

Rey’s strongest childhood memory—before being left on Jakku—was running after one such vehicle with the other kids, hoping to catch the stray fruit that occasionally fell from the overstocked crates. A jogan fruit—bright purple and scribbled with white stripes—stood clearly in her mind’s eye, a lone fruit jostled from the safety of the land speeder and bouncing—once, twice—on the street before rolling into Rey’s hand…

Would her family recognize her if they saw her again?

Would she recognize them?

Rey cleared her throat, bringing herself back to the present. She had a hundred more problems to solve before she could think about details like that. She needed to refill the water tank from the tap in Niima, purchase more rations from Unkar Plutt, and unwrap their newly scavenged computer parts and store them safely away from blowing sand.

Rey knelt down by Ben’s pack, sorting through the various components he had scavenged. She withdrew the left over rations, tossing them aside in the sand. As her hand worked through the black canvas bag, her fingers touched something cold and smooth. Rey frowned, opening the bag wider to get a good look. She reached for the glassy object, withdrawing it from its place of safety.

It was an onyx-colored stone, spherical in shape and smooth like polished glass. It fit comfortably in the palm of her hand, not much bigger than the pit of a jogan fruit. As she inspected it, a faint whispering filled her ears, like a fuzzy radio transmission. Rey frowned, leaning forward as she held the stone closer to her ear. The voices were clearer, and she could make out a handful of words, different voices struggling to speak over the other—

“…It’s energy…”

“…you will be tempted… but you cannot control it…”

Rey pressed the stone flat against her ear.

“The Force will be with you—“

“…any Jedi…”

“No! Come back!”

“Quiet, girl—“

Rey dropped the stone like it had burned her, scrambling to her feet. The stone hit the sand with a silent thud, all its former shine replaced by a muddy, murky darkness. Rey had half a mind to bury it—this thing that whispered to her like the invisible voices in the Observatory, the same ones that had led her to Ben…

Rey snatched it up, balling it in her fist as she marched around to the other side of her AT-AT, where Ben was rinsing off underneath the tap to her water tank, half-undressed.

“What—? What is this?” She demanded, her voice faltering as she turned her gaze away half a second too late. She held out the black stone accusingly.

“What?”

“This thing!” Rey spat, shaking her fist at him. She turned her gaze back around to look at Ben. He had straightened up, water dripping from his dark hair and onto exposed shoulders. He was broad—much larger than his dark garments had led Rey to believe—and completely naked from the waist up. A bandage was stuck to his right side, over his ribs, and Rey could see that the scar on his face traveled the full length of his neck and collar, finally ending just over the cusp of his shoulder.

He approached her, frowning at the object in her hand. His voice was calm and oddly detached. “Where did you find that?”

“In your pack,” Rey replied, the accusation heavy in her voice.

His eyes flashed up at her, full of darkness and danger.

Rey took a faltering step back. The look on his face had faded as quickly as it came. “What is it?” She demanded.

He held out his hand wordlessly to her, his jaw set rigidly.

Rey pulled the stone closer to her chest. It was her only bartering chip. “Did you take it from the Observatory?” She continued. “Is this the thing I saw?”

“No—“

“I don’t believe you—“

He gave her an exasperated look.

Rey’s eyes darted to his sleek Imperial starship. She thought about his secrecy, his paranoia, and the fact that he didn’t reveal his knowledge about the Force until Rey herself demonstrated its abilities… she looked down at the crystal in her hand, remembering their brief conversation about relics… Then she remembered that her staff was leaning against the other side of her AT-AT, and that she was unarmed… If Ben turned against her, she wouldn’t be able to stop him…

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he insisted, as though Rey’s fears had spoken aloud.

Rey’s eyes found his, and his hands were up, a display of hesitant peace.

“Who are you?” She asked through gritted teeth.

“I told you—“

“You told me your name,” Rey interrupted. “That’s not what I asked—“

There was a long silence between them. Ben lowered his hands slowly. Rey could see the thoughts firing rapidly in his mind as his expression evolved from annoyance to fear to cautious resignation. A muscle twitched in his jaw as he thought.

Something stirred in the air around them.

Ben looked at the AT-AT sharply. “He’s waking up…” Ben, now dry from the heat of the sun, reached for his tunic and pulled it over his head as he walked toward the shelter’s entrance.

“You haven’t told me a thing!” Rey hissed, following him.

Ben hesitated, eyes falling on the black stone in her hands. “Just—put it away. For now.”

“What?”

“Just for right now—we’ll talk about it later! We have a bigger problem on our hands!”

“Don’t you walk away from me—“ Rey shot, grabbing a hold of her staff and swinging it around to block Ben’s path.

He froze, turning to her. His face was a mixture of anger and surprise. “There isn’t time for this—“

“Tell me why you have this!” Rey commanded, the stone clutched safely between her palm and her staff.

Ben looked anxiously toward the AT-AT and back to Rey. When he spoke, it was in clipped tones. “It’s a relic, I plan to destroy it, and I _don’t have time to explain this to you_ ,” he added through gritted teeth. He waited for Rey to move her staff, his face expectant.

Rey considered him. She had trusted him thus far, unwitting though it may have been. Then her thoughts drifted toward the Stormtrooper inside her home. “The _second_ we’re alone,” she hissed.

He ducked into the shelter to confront the now-conscious Stormtrooper. Rey let out a shaking breath, lowing her staff, and considered the relic in her hand. She fought the urge to chuck it as hard as she could. It wasn’t whispering to her—in fact, it appeared completely benign—but Rey had yet to forget the horrible feeling the Force had on her in the Observatory, the total loss of control…

She marched back toward Ben’s pack, stuffing it inside. She wrapped the mostly-empty pack several times around itself, and shoved it in the TIE’s cockpit. Feeling completely unhappy with this solution, temporary though it was, Rey took a deep breath and remembered what Ben had said about “acting normal” when the Stormtrooper awoke.

What was even normal, anymore?

Irritation flared in her stomach at following Ben’s orders when he had clearly been keeping secrets from her, but she didn’t know what other choice she had. It wasn’t like she could trust the Stormtrooper instead…

Rey entered the shelter, her eyes struggling to adjust to the darkness. She paused, clenching and unclenching her fists. She hoped she was a good actress.

“Is he up yet?” She called, reaching for her satchel by the stove. Her voice was high and sounded completely unnatural.

“Nearly.”

Rey moved to the less-used side of her home, the side Ben had taken to sleep.

The stranger was sitting upright on Ben’s cot, his eyes wide with uncertainty. Between them, Ben got to his feet. Rey studied the young Stormtrooper, squaring her jaw. Her first instinct was anger; the First Order was never a welcome sight on Jakku. But then there was the possibility he had renounced the First Order…

“Who are you?” Rey asked.

“A defector,” Ben replied, getting to his feet. He didn’t take his eyes off the Stormtrooper. “Left for dead in the desert.”

Rey nodded, unsurprised.

“I’m not here to make trouble,” the Stormtrooper insisted, looking between Rey and Ben. “I just want to get as far away from the First Order as possible.”

Rey nodded again. There was no immediate danger—well, aside from everything else that was happening—but they would have to remain careful. She tried to keep her voice light, even as she thought about the relic shoved under the pilot’s seat in Ben’s TIE. “And what’s your name?”

“Finn,” Ben answered for him.

Rey considered him for a moment. “Well, I’m Rey,” she finally said. She turned to Ben, giving him a warning look she hoped Finn couldn’t see. “Well, I’m off to Niima.”

Wordlessly, he reached into his pocket and handed her a fistful of coins. Rey stuffed them safely into her bag. “Right. Well, I’ll be back soon, then…” She glanced between Finn and Ben one more time, wondering if she was making the right choice by trusting Ben, before turning on her heel.

 

 

 


	5. Bad Karma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Ben finish repairing the TIE. On their way to Niima, they discover the First Order has been scouring the Jakku villages for information on two fugitives. Rey, Finn, and Ben have to flee with the First Order in pursuit.

The worst part of the training was the meditation.

Ben, Darin, and Aayla each sat in a separate room with a camera fixed in all corners. Above them was an intercom through which Commander Hux barked his orders.

“One minute.”

Ben felt his heart sink. He adjusted his weight in his chair, back rigid and fingers and toes curling tightly. Electrodes had been glued to his head and chest, itchy and often annoying, but Ben forgot all about them. He held his breath, waiting until a hatch in the wall opened up, reveling a brightly-lit cabinet. Inside the cabinet was a smelted bronze object, dense and cold. Ben had to use both hands to pick it up, his fingers simultaneously freezing and burning. He walked back to his chair, desperate to sit down before the relic overpowered him.

The intercom clicked. “Begin.”

Ben shut his eyes, allowing himself to sink into the Force. He felt himself, frozen and terrified, and beyond the walls of the lab he could feel Hux and half a dozen other science officers with data pads, watching their screens. He could see himself through their eyes, lit up on a screen next to Aayla and Darin… beyond that, he felt the hundreds of officers in the laboratory, each another layer inside the ship. Thousands of First Order students and military alike, performing their daily tasks, napping, playing secret games of cards… And the cold, empty expanse of space, stretching on as far as the eye could see, and then even further beyond that…

Suddenly it was all washed over by a wave of Darkness. Light blinked out of existence, taking the ship and all its occupants with it, leaving only Ben in a dark room that stretched on through infinity. The relic in his hands suddenly became weightless, just another limb attached to Ben’s body.

He was supposed to be doing something.

Ben was brought back to his senses. Somewhere in the dark room he could see Commander Hux and the others, waiting patiently. Or impatiently, if Ben didn’t get to work quickly…

His fingers tightened on the relic and he willed himself to be steady, to absorb its energy even as it threatened to crush him, drown him in the darkness… Ben’s skin was on fire, his bones splintering underneath. He wanted to cry out, to drop the relic and run… This was just the test, Hux had explained. To make sure he was worthy enough to harness the relic’s power.

 _Think of something that makes you angry…_ Snoke’s voice was speaking to him through the Force. _Something that hurt you… And use it to make you stronger…_

Ben gripped the relic tighter, as though he thought squeezing all of the energy out would expedite the torture… the fire was in his lungs, his brain, and every quickened heartbeat only fanned the flames brighter… He could feel his spine splitting, his arms and legs crumbling into dust…

He was going to die.

_Ben, no!_

The memory of Luke standing over him tore through Ben like strafing fire. But instead of destroying him, the rage began to pull the pieces back together. Suddenly his body had shape again, solid and sure even as it blistered. The anger blazed wild and out of control, transforming into hate and pain… an unyielding need for revenge and death…

The fire burned itself into ash. The flames retreated into an impossibly hot source of energy, ready to spark at the slightest provocation… Ben’s vision found the four walls of his testing room, of the cold metal floor and the basic chair he sat in. Between his hands was the relic, black and covered in soot, as though pulled from a fire…

The intercom clicked. Ben’s ears pricked, waiting.

“You may put it back,” was all Hux said.

He did as instructed, watching the doors slip over the cabinet and hide the relic from sight.

Usually Ben woke up on the floor, covered in sweat and sometimes vomit. The relic had always overpowered him, crushing him. But this time Ben felt electric. He was sure he could stop a volley of blaster bolts, bring down an X-Wing with a single thought, even cut through Jedi Master Luke Skywalker with his lightsaber… he could destroy everything.

His door opened, and Hux stood there, stiff and formal, but a manic glint in his eye. “You did very well,” he told Ben. “Better than the others.”

“I did?”

One of the science officers presented a data pad with the official results. Hux glanced at it, a look of smug satisfaction crossing his pale features. “The first success.”

Ben almost collapsed under the weight of the emotion that flooded through him. Relief, triumph, and a wild urge to do even better flooded through his veins. “Can I do it again?”

Hux’s eyes snapped on to his. He was taken aback by the wild request. “Tomorrow,” he promised. “We need to run the usual labs, and then you need to rest. We’ll see if it sticks.”

 

* * *

 

While Finn slept, Rey crept out of the AT-AT hours after the sun had gone down. She knew Ben lay awake; she could feel him watching her in the darkness as she hovered by the half-closed hatch and the tattered tarp draping across the shelter’s exit. She gestured her head to the cold desert outside, knowing he would follow.

Rey pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders, marching across the cool sand until she was well shot of her home, past Ben’s ship and out of range if Finn woke up. She waited for the dark shadow to emerge, following her footsteps.

He reached her, but Rey hesitated to speak first. She expected Ben to explain himself, but she soon realized he wasn’t going to offer up any information she didn’t explicitly ask for.

“Why do you have a relic?” She whispered. She hoped her tone was sharp and that he could hear the pent up irritation in it.

“To destroy it,” was his easy reply.

He must have been mulling over his answers to her potential questions, because the explanation was quick and assured.

“Why?”

“To keep it from the First Order. From Snoke.”

“Who’s Snoke?”

There was a pause. Rey wished she could see Ben’s face more clearly in the darkness, but both of Jakku’s moons were well into their waning stage.

“The leader of the First Order,” he finally said.

“Why would he want a relic? Is it a Sith relic? Is Snoke a Sith?”

“The Sith are extinct,” he replied quietly. “But Snoke wants the relic, yes. He’s spent decades scouring the galaxy for them, but most of them have been lost or destroyed from the collapse of the Empire.”

Rey considered the implications of this. She remembered Ben’s words about relics amplifying the powers of a Force user. “So he wants it to increase his power—to increase the power of the First Order.”

“At its root, yes.”

“Where did you find it?”

“A mining colony not far from here.”

Rey was beginning to realize Ben would only give her short, vague answers, acknowledging her questions only on the most superficial level.

“ _How_ did you know where to find it? Are you looking for them?”

Ben hesitated, and Rey knew she had found her target. “I learned about relics and holocrons in my early education,” he finally said. “Finding the relic was a mix of knowing where to look and guessing right.”

“Why are you looking for them?”

“I thought that was obvious—“

Rey rolled her eyes. “Are you a Resistance fighter?”

“No.” His voice was sharp, his reply coming so quickly that Rey wondered whether the question had offended him somehow.

“Then why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you care?” Rey demanded. “If you’re not part of the First Order, and you’re not part of the Resistance, why do you care what they do?”

“So I’m supposed to choose a side?”

Rey sighed, irritated by his coyness. He was hiding something from her, and he would make her work to pry it out. “I might just be a scavenger—a nobody on a junkyard planet—but I’m not stupid. No one does anything without a reason, and they definitely don’t hide relics from the First Order for no reason.”

He scoffed. “It isn’t about sides.”

“How can it not be?” Rey exploded. “The First Order declares sovereignty over tiny planets with no support, taking up all of their resources, indenturing its people, and shelling everything in between—“

“And the New Republic pats itself on the shoulder for being _neutral,_ knowing that planets just like this one are left without support when New Republic meddling crippled their economy and governments in the first place,” Ben interrupted, anger in his voice. “They absorbed them into the folds of this ideal democracy, but refuse to make any hard decisions, costing millions of people their lives every year—it’s all corrupt, the whole galaxy is—the New Republic doesn’t care about places like Jakku—“

“At least they aren’t bombing anyone—“

Ben rolled his eyes at that. “Do you know why the official stance of the New Republic is demilitarization? It’s to deflect attention from the fact that they fully supported any rebellion to destabilize the Empire, funneling weapons into the hands of crime organizations and guerrilla fighters—the same fighters that the Republic now brands terrorists. I don’t understand why you would defend them. The New Republic doesn’t care about the slave trade on Jakku, either—“

“I’m not a slave!” Rey spat, anger flaring white hot in her stomach.

Ben sighed. When he spoke, his tone was less heated. “That’s not what I meant—look, there’s no point in arguing about this—“

“I thought you hated the First Order,” Rey interrupted. Her head was spinning.

“I do,” Ben insisted. He turned to face her, running a frustrated hand through his hair. Rey had to admit he sounded sincere. There was a hitch in his breathing, like he was stopping himself from saying more.

Rey wished it was morning so she could see his face.

“Are there more relics?” She finally asked.

His hand dropped and he straightened up. “I’m sure there are.”

“If they were all destroyed…” she began.

“There’s no point searching for all of them,” Ben interrupted her. “It would take more than a lifetime to find them all—but just focusing on ones the First Order knows about… that might be enough.”

Rey considered all of this bizarre new information. “Was it really solar damage?” Rey asked, gesturing to the ship.

Ben considered her question. “It was damage from a radiated source,” was his non-reply.

Rey rolled her eyes. “Were they following you? The people you took the relic from?”

“They tried.”

“They took a chunk of your ship for their trouble,” she noted.

“So it appears.”

He was being coy again, dodging her questions as though he was certain he had divulged more than enough to satisfy Rey. But her appetite for knowledge was rapacious; she wanted to know more about these relics, about where they had come from and how Ben knew to find them. She wanted to know more about Ben… he was so full of contradictions, and Rey wanted to know how all the pieces fit together.

Most of all, she wanted to know about the Force, and how she fit into it…

“In the stories I grew up on, the Jedi and the Sith wield the Force like a power. A weapon. They had laser swords, and special abilities…”

Ben was watching her, waiting for the question.

“Is that part true?”

The darkness was beginning to ebb away. Dawn wasn’t too far off.

He ran a hand through his hair, thinking. “The version you heard was likely exaggerated, but yes, it’s essentially true.”

“Can you do that stuff? Lift rocks, and…float?”

“Is that what you think the Force is?”

“Well, I don’t know, you barely answer my questions—“

“There are…enhanced abilities,” Ben allowed. “But most of it is just being connected.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Then perhaps you need a teacher. When you return to Onderon, you can seek one out…”

That stirred Rey’s memory of her deal with Ben. Once his ship was airborne, she would leave Jakku, probably for forever…

“Who was your teacher?” She asked suddenly.

He turned away from her, but not before she could see the pained look that crossed his face. “They’re all dead.”

“Oh.”

“I told the Stormtrooper—Finn—that he would stay with us until we’re ready to leave,” Ben said, changing the subject. “Then I’ll take him to Niima. I don’t want him out of my sight until we’re gone.”

Rey nodded. That made sense. “He seems nice.”

Ben didn’t reply to that. The black sky had faded to an inky blue, and Rey could see him staring off into the distance, lost in thought. She wished she could read his mind.

“Couldn’t we take him somewhere?” She asked. “To a…better planet? He’ll never get off Jakku—“

His brows were knit together in a frown, but he didn’t turn to look at her. “Do you always worry so much about strays?”

She glowered at him. “You’ve benefited from it.”

A tiny smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth, but he fought it. “It’s too dangerous.”

“You agreed to take me with you.”

“You said I owe you for saving my life.”

Rey considered the Dark relic stuffed away in the TIE, and the shadows in the Observatory. None of it made any sense to her. “What was really down there?”

His eyes turned toward the empty expanse of desert, narrowing as he contemplated his answer. “There are rumors that Sheev Palpatine, the old Emperor, had a secret Observatory somewhere in the Inner Rim.” He shrugged. “In the end, Palpatine was paranoid and corrupted by the Dark side. He was equally terrified of losing his power and his empire… so he began secret branches of his military, tasked with researching and experimenting with whatever new technology his scientists had. When the Empire fell, they were all abandoned. I don’t know _exactly_ what’s under the Observatory, or why it’s there…”

“More relics,” Rey finished for him.

He nodded, once, a curt gesture.

She thought about it. “Does the First Order know? What’s there?”

“No,” Ben replied dully. “None of—Snoke only trusts the knowledge of his…spiritual pursuits with an elite group of supporters—if any of them knew about the relics on Jakku, the entire planet would have been razed in a heartbeat.”

“How do you know?”

Ben looked at her.

“About Snoke wanting the relics, I mean,” Rey clarified. She suddenly felt very small under his gaze.

He was saved the pain of answering by movement from the entrance of the AT-AT.

Finn was awake.

 

* * *

 

Early that first morning in the AT-AT, Finn awoke with a start. It took him a moment to remember where he was, and what had happened—he looked around toward Ren’s cot, but he was already up.

Finn sat up, rubbing the soreness out of his neck. His throat was parched, and he had to pee. He searched through the makeshift kitchen for a water canteen, taking several gulps before stepping outside.

The sky was dim, still a periwinkle blue as the sun hadn’t broken on the horizon. Finn walked a wide circle around the AT-AT, looking for the toilet Rey had mentioned. He found what must have passed for the bathroom carved out inside the old AT-AT’s head: a tiny makeshift room with a semi-circular bench and a hole dug deep into the ground.

When he was finished with his business, Finn walked around the far side of the AT-AT, past Rey’s land speeder and some kind of water reservoir. He approached the dark mass of Ren’s disabled TIE fighter, and jumped when someone spoke.

“Early riser?”

Finn jumped and looked around toward the voice before his eyes caught sight of Ren kneeling behind the TIE’s left wing, uncovering a blanket laid out next to him, filled with an assortment of wires and chips.

“Er, just getting air,” Finn said, his heart fluttering in his chest. He hesitated, then decided to walk over toward Ren, examining his work on the wing. Finn wasn’t much of a mechanic—he had passed all the training modules in the Academy, but his real interest had been in Special Forces. He was assigned to Phasma’s elite FN Corps unit and scored top marks in all his training modules. In fact, he had been fast-tracked for officer training despite being relegated to sanitation duties onboard the _Finalizer_ as punishment for what Phasma termed his “unnecessary compassion.” But after his training missions in Kowak and the artificial asteroid field in Pressylla, where he had been unable to fire upon live targets, Finn began to second guess himself. The mission in Tuanul had been Phasma’s attempt to shake him.

“Is Rey up?”

“She was—she went back inside to start breakfast.”

Finn nodded. The silence dragged on.

“What’s the interest in Lor San Tekka?” Ren asked without looking up from his work.

Finn shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“But they sent your unit—Phasma’s unit,” Ren continued, shining a flashlight onto the blanket next to him while he searched for a specific component. “What did your training prepare for?”

“Just that there was a single target—San Tekka—who was a traitor to the First Order and being harbored by the villagers in Tuanul. We were supposed to provide support while Phasma arrested him.”

“So alive, then.”

“Yes. But he wasn’t there. The villagers said he had gone weeks ago.”

Ren sighed, letting his breath out through his nose.

“Do you know San Tekka?” Finn asked, crossing his arms. “From—before.”

Ren looked at him, but it was still too dark to make out his expression clearly. For a moment Finn was sure Ren was going to ignore his question, but then he spoke, startling Finn. “He’s an old Jedi fanatic. Snoke thought he might know how to find Luke Skywalker.”

An awkwardness hung in the chilly morning air. Finn knew about Ren’s history—a great deal of it, in fact, as the FN Corps often had access to greater gossip due to their proximity to the officers. He knew Kylo Ren had once been a Jedi student to Luke Skywalker, turning to the Dark side and aligning himself with Supreme Leader Snoke for many years. Ren was referred to as the “Jedi Killer,” a name whispered behind Ren’s back all across the upper ranks of the First Order. He was powerful, ruthless, and devoted to Supreme Leader Snoke.

So when he was outed as a traitor and hunted to the ends of the galaxy, the First Order was shocked. How could such a devoted and loyal believer turn coat so quickly? Finn recalled the weeks of reconditioning everyone was forced to attend in the wake of Ren’s desertion; Commander Hux was trying to weed out any seeds of dissent, stopping future betrayals before they happened.

But Finn only knew Ren as he was in the First Order. No one knew his real name, from where he had come (unless the rumors about Leia Organa were true), or even what he looked like beneath the mask. Finn only recognized him by the scar; he and other FN troopers had been ordered to search surveillance footage from the _Finalizer_ the day Kylo Ren escaped, and had watched Ren—critically injured and maskless—escape from the hangar bay.

“What made you decide to run?” Finn asked. “To change your mind?”

Ren pulled a frayed wire from the TIE’s wing, his face momentarily illuminated by a shower of sparks. “I didn’t change my mind.”

Finn frowned, confused. “But you left.”

“Yes.”

“Then I don’t understand.”

Ren sighed. Then he asked bitterly, “Did you choose to join the First Order?”

Finn stared at him, as though seeing Ren for the first time. Suddenly a hundred new possibilities swam through his mind, credible explanations for Ren’s origins and the catalyst behind his betrayal.

Because it wasn’t a betrayal at all.

It was an escape.

Had the Supreme Leader been holding Kylo Ren prisoner that whole time? It was certainly likely—countless science officers were held against their will by Commander Hux, compliant under fear of retaliation against their families. But how had Snoke been able to control Ren? Ensure the man did as ordered when Kylo Ren operated on the _Finalizer_ while Snoke was hidden half a galaxy away in the Outer Rim?

“How—?”

“That’s enough.”

Just after the sun crested over the horizon, Rey emerged from the AT-AT, a plate in each hand. They held the same portions as the night before. Rey handed one plate to Finn as she settled herself in the sand beside him.

“Sleep well?” She asked.

Finn shrugged. “Sure. Thanks,” he added again.

“So where do you plan to go?” She asked through a mouthful of food. “If you can get off Jakku.” For some reason, she shot a nasty look toward Ren, who was brushing sand off his hands and heading their way.

Finn thought about it. “Anywhere,” he said. “I want to get as far away from the First Order as possible.”

Ren had reached them. Rey didn’t look up at him as she spoke. “How’s the work?”

He wiped his brow with the back of his arm. “It’s nearly done, the wiring—just have to attach the solar panels and test it out.”

She gave no answer to that, glaring at her plate before taking another bite.

A headache was forming in the back of Finn’s head. He was severely dehydrated and decaffeinated. Finn was accustomed to at least two cups of caf every morning, and the sudden change in routine was not welcome by his body.

Ren took a long swig of the water canteen, looking down at Finn and Rey eating breakfast. “Is there more?” He asked.

“No.”

Her reply was simple, indifferent…

Finn’s hand—halfway to his mouth—froze. He glanced at Rey, but she was ignoring them both. His gaze traveled up to Ren, and Finn saw him roll his eyes.

“We’ll have to go to Niima, then.”

“I suppose so.”

Ren was watching her, a muscle twitching in his jaw.

These two were clearly at odds with each other, and they seemed to have forgotten Finn was there at all. He kept his eyes downcast, focusing on his own food while Ren and Rey exchanged passive aggressive barbs.

“We should go soon, before the sun is high.”

“I suppose so.”

Ren hesitated, looking like he wanted to say something more, but just rolled his eyes again and walked away. “Does the land speeder have fuel?” He called over his shoulder.

“I dunno.”

Finn swallowed his last bite, very uncomfortable.

Ren checked the tank, then the back-up fuel canister. The answer appeared to be “no.” He checked the level in the land speeder once more, declaring, “There’s enough to get to Niima, but we’ll need more.”

“Guess you should get going.”

Rey got to her feet, snatching Finn’s plate wordlessly before disappearing back inside the AT-AT. Finn made eye contact with Ren, who ran a hand through his dark hair and gave an exasperated sigh. He began to prep the land speeder for travel, adjusting the nets and removing the excess cargo. After several silent minutes passed, he leaned against the land speeder in defeat. Staring at the ground, he said to Finn, “Will you go see if she plans to come?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Finn got to his feet, but Rey was already in the doorway, dressed and pulling her satchel over her shoulder. “I’ll ask around, see if there’s any work available,” she told him.

Nearby, Ren shot her a warning look. Rey blatantly ignored it.

Finn wasn’t sure what went on in the early hours while he slept, but something had definitely changed between Rey and Ren.

The long drive into Jakku was done in silence. The sun had began its steady climb into the sky, the double moons fading to tiny white slivers when they reached the outskirts of Niima Outpost. There were a dozen or so other vehicles there, parked haphazardly in the sand. Finn and Ren climbed down from the land speeder first while Rey cut the ignition.

“We’re in and out,” Ren instructed them, rubbing the heels of his hands against his face tiredly. “We can come back and find Finn work later.”

“It doesn’t hurt to check,” was Rey’s salty reply. She jumped down into the sand next to them.

Ren gave her a long look, but apparently decided against a retort. He turned on his heel, leading the way through the gates. Suddenly Ren froze, causing Rey to walk straight into him.

“Ow, what—?”

But the question died on her lips. In the distance were the unmistakable white armored uniforms of First Order Stormtroopers, at least a dozen of them. They were interviewing villagers, investigating shops, and patrolling the dirt streets, armed with blaster rifles.

Finn’s heart sank when he saw them. His first instinct was to turn around and run, but that would attract attention.

“Don’t move,” Ren muttered, thinking quickly. He looked to his left, then his right, before saying, “Okay—you two walk back to the land speeder— _slowly._ Go around that happabore—fill your canteens—and don’t look at anyone.”

Finn exchanged a wide-eyed look with Rey, but they did as instructed.

The well was perhaps less than twenty-five meters away, but to Finn it felt like miles. He kept his eyes downcast, walking so that Rey was blocked from sight if the First Order took notice of them. He didn’t dare look behind him at Ren to see where he had gone.

Finn had a mind to just keep walking once they passed the giant sleeping happabore, but Rey smacked him with the back of her fingers to get his attention, inclining her head a fraction of an inch toward the well’s spigot.

“Don’t look up, but I think they’re watching us,” she muttered out of the corner of her mouth. Shaking hands reached for her canteen, and she struggled to unscrew the lid. “Turn the spigot on,” she added, glancing at it pointedly.

Finn did as instructed, sure that a volley of blaster fire was about to open on them at any moment.

Rey held the canteen under the murky water, but the way she kept glancing slightly to her left told Finn that someone was approaching.

“You two!”

An icy barb pierced Finn’s chest when he recognized the distorted way Stormtrooper helmets muffled their wearer’s voice. He turned around slowly, swallowing the lump in his throat.

“Names?” The nearest of the two Troopers demanded. Finn recognized them as the TN unit.

“Rey, and this is… Tor,” Rey answered, making up a name for Finn on the fly.

“Are you locals?”

“Yes—scavengers.”

The two Stormtroopers looked at Rey’s dusty pale linens and Finn’s pure black clothes. In that moment, the disparity was obvious, but Finn prayed they didn’t put too much importance on it.

“You work for Plutt?” The second Trooper barked.

Rey nodded curtly.

The two Troopers looked at each other, then back to Rey and Finn. In that split second, Finn took the opportunity to quickly scan the road around Niima, looking for Ren. There were just more Stormtroopers.

“We’re searching for two human males, one elderly and one young,” one of the Stormtroopers said, conjuring up a holographic image of an older male with cropped hair and long robes. “Have you seen him?”

Rey’s face paled, but she shook her head. Finn followed suit. “No.”

“Are you familiar with the village Tuanul?”

Rey shrugged, a jerky movement meant to mimic indifference. “I’ve heard of it.”

“Fanatics live there,” Finn added, knowing the First Order’s distaste for the Church of the Force.Prior to his own mission, members of the FN Corps had made a number of disparaging jokes at Tuanul’s expense.

The Stormtrooper pressed something on the data pad, and another image appeared, this one frighteningly familiar.

“What about this man?”

Rey seemed unable to speak, so Finn took the lead, swallowing the lump in his throat. “No.”

It was Kylo Ren—though the image was old. His scar wasn’t there, and his hair was shorter, but Finn recognized the face immediately.

“These two fugitives are hostile enemies of the First Order,” the Stormtrooper added. “The Supreme Leader is prepared to offer generous rewards to those who can provide information that can lead to their capture. Do either of you—“

But the Stormtrooper’s question was cut short as a message came through on their comms.

“ _Hostile target, two blocks north of the concession stand—_ “

Before the message had finished coming through, blaster fire could be heard ripping through the north side of Niima Outpost. Scavengers ducked while the Stormtroopers sprang into action.

“Stay here!” They ordered Rey and Finn before running to the source of the commotion.

Rey and Finn looked at each other, eyes wide. Once the Stormtroopers had given them ground, they took off running toward the land speeder.

“Hey!”

Shots whizzed past Finn’s ear. He reached out for Rey and found her hand—he yanked her as he suddenly changed course to the right, dodging between tents and shacks.

Niima Outpost had devolved into a battle. It was only a matter of time before back up TIE fighters were summoned to provide strafing fire. They had to get out of there _now._

“Let—go—of—my—hand!” Rey said, yanking her hand free when Finn came to a sudden stop, searching for the best route to their land speeder. He ignored her request, reaching for it again when he spotted an opening.

They darted across open road before crouching around a dilapidated shack, ducking their heads to stay low from stray blaster fire. They ran in a wide circle, dodging between fleeing scavengers and abandoned carts as they approached Rey’s land speeder. She turned the engine over quickly, bringing it back around Niima Outpost.

“What are you doing?” Finn shouted. “We got to go!”

“We need to get Ben!”

Finn doesn’t register the name Rey calls Kylo Ren.

Rey drives the land speeder in between tents, dodging debris and aliens alike, until she spots him.

He’s kneeling behind Unkar’s locked-down concession stand, a Stormtrooper blaster rifle in his hands. Finn watches as he takes down one target after another. Overhead, a familiar screech lets Finn know back up has arrived.

“Ben!” Rey shouts, bringing the land speeder closer.

Ren sees them, and runs toward them sideways, firing off a constant volley from the stolen rifle. He throws it to Finn, who immediately provides suppressive fire while Ren climbs onto the land speeder behind him. Rey has already torn off across Niima before Ren is firmly planted. Overhead, half a dozen TIE fighters descend.

“Go, go, go!” Rey is shouting at her land speeder as they fly across the desert. All the other scavengers are fleeing Niima, and Finn hopes the chaos is enough to keep the TIE fighters from following them.

They reach Rey’s AT-AT in record time. Ren jumps off before the land speeder has come to a complete stop, running toward his ship, Rey and Finn right behind him.

“Help me get this panel up!” He barked, reaching for the half-repaired outer solar panel.

Finn and Rey did as ordered, eyes trained on the horizon for the approach of the First Order. 

“Hold it there—“ Ren reached for his hydraulic drill, screwing the plate into place as quickly as possible. Finn and Rey struggled under the weight of the panel, their feet sliding in the hot sand.

A loud screech alerts them to the approach of two more fighters.

“Oh shit—“ Finn mutters under his breath. Then he shouts, “We got company!”

“Hurry!” Rey screams, but Ben isn’t paying attention to her. He isn’t even moving. He’s standing with the hydraulic drill in one hand, his other held out toward the approaching TIEs. Finn doesn’t have time to question what he’s doing, because suddenly the two TIEs loop a wide arc directly into each other, exploding into a wave of fire and smoke.

Finn instinctively ducked, nearly dropping the panel. Rey’s wild eyes found his, and they shared a stunned look. Rey caught up to her senses first. “Keep moving!” She shouted.

Ren, who had sunk to his knees in the sand behind Finn, suddenly clamored back to his feet. Finn watched him, acutely aware that Ren had just performed some incredible act of witchcraft.

Once the last bolt was in place, Ren began to fling belongings into the cockpit wildly. Rey climbed up the side of the ship, turning over the engines.

“Get in the ship!” Ren shouted, closing all the exposed paneling on the rear of his TIE Silencer and sealing it shut.

“Can it fly?” Rey asked dubiously.

Finn saw uncertainty cross Ren’s face. In the distance, two more TIE fighters began to head their way.

“ _Kriff_ —“

Rey leaned out of the cockpit, extending a hand to Finn. “Get in!”

He didn’t wait to be told a second time. Finn climbed up the side of the cockpit, practically falling on Rey in the process. Ren was right behind him, jumping into the pilot’s seat as Rey reached over his shoulder to shut the hatch.

Ren began hitting controls wildly as he attempted to secure his harness at the same time. The computer system booted to life, alerting them of the three dozen or so maintenance flags—Ren deleted them as fast as they popped up in the queue, powering up the thrusters and arming the shields. The computer recited warnings at them, but Ren ignored them all.

Finn and Rey were behind the pilot’s position, strapping themselves into the jump seats. Finn looked through the dashboard, and could see the First Order bearing down on them quickly.

“They’re coming!”

Ren was swearing at his controls, trying to expedite the flight start-up process. The ship groaned as the thrusters burst into life, pushing the ship several feet off the ground. Then, before Ren could so much as reach for the yoke, the approaching TIEs unleashed a volley of fire around them.

The ship shook violently, and for a moment Finn was sure they were going to die. But the shields held up against the laser fire, screaming warnings at Ren about the damage. In the few seconds it took for the First Order to swing back around for a second volley, Ren slammed his fist on the control for the rear thrust arrays, shooting the ship forward. The G-forces knocked the air out of Finn’s chest as Ren pulled back on the yoke, sending them airborne.

The TIE Silencer was more advanced—and thus quicker—than the typical star fighters used by the First Order. Ren led the two TIE fighters deep into the Jakku desert, toward the junk shipyard in the distance. Finn and Rey clung on to the cockpit’s walls for support while Ren jerked the ship sharply, diving between remnants of Imperial Star Destroyers. He shot the first trailing TIE fighter easily, diving back among the wreckage to swing around the second one. As he did, however, the lights in the cockpit suddenly went out. The ship lurched several feet before the back up generator kicked in.

“Warning,” the computer recited. “Partial engine failure. Heavy canons offline. Back up generator at sixty-percent—“

Ren swore loudly, pressing buttons. He glanced at his scanner, saw the other TIE was in hot pursuit, and jerked the yoke, narrowly avoiding more laser fire.

“I’ll try to lose him!” Ren shouted over the computer’s warnings. “Rey—I need you to fix whatever’s wrong!”

Rey was already climbing out of her harness, prying open the panel to the computer’s motherboard.

The ship arched and then dove suddenly, sending Rey crashing into Finn.

“It’d be easier if you could try to fly in a straight line!”

“Just hang on to something!”

Rey was inspecting wires and switches, one hand gripping Finn for support. She pulled two wires from their sockets.

“Warning,” the computer interrupted. “Ion thrusters offline—“

“Not those!” Ren shouted as the ship lurched, suddenly losing momentum. They were now barely more than cruising speed.

Rey shoved the wires back into place. Ren listed hard to the left, narrowly avoiding laser fire.

“Ion thrusters back online…”

They jerked forward again as Ren tried to increase the distance between them and the First Order pursuer. Rey, who had been knocked off balance, was helped back to her feet by Finn. He dared to steal a glance out of the cockpit’s window, and saw more TIE fighters approaching.

Ren spotted them, too. “Fuck…”

He pulled the ship into a hard turn, deep into the exposed belly of an Imperial Star Destroyer. The cockpit was plunged into darkness, illuminated only by the red emergency lights of the back up generator powering their ship.

Rey was pulling at more wires, biting off the wax coating and twisting two exposed ends together. They sparked, burning her fingers, but Rey shook it off, shoving the connection into place.

“Heavy canons back online,” the computer recited.

Ren didn’t hesitate to swing his TIE Silencer back around, firing on their pursuers. Rey struggled to secure herself back into her jump seat. Within minutes, all the hostile TIE fighters had been shot down and Ren pulled hard on the yoke, directing the ship high into Jakku’s atmosphere and into space.

In the chaos of the chase and subsequent fire-fight, the Dark relic had rolled out of the safety of Ben’s pack and into the tiny open space of floor between Finn and Rey. They both looked down at it at the same time. Around them, the ship finally leveled off as Ben hastily typed in coordinates and set his ship for a hyperspace jump.


	6. Takodana

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Traveling through space with a damaged and partially-fueled ship, Ben rendezvous in Takodana. Finn looks for a ride while Ben confers with Maz Kanata.

 

Finn looked like he could faint, but Rey was on fire. She wriggled out of her harness, marching across the tiny cockpit and grabbing Ben’s sleeve with an angry fist.

“What was that?” She demanded.

Finn was undoing his own harness, watching them.

Ben swatted her hand away, unbuckling himself and standing up.

“They were looking for you!” She shouted, her body on fire in a weird mix of anger and terror. Her skin felt hot and itchy, and she had the wild urge to lash out. “They had your face on a data pad!” Suddenly she remembered Finn was there, and rounded on him. “Did you know?” She demanded.

Finn opened his mouth to speak, but he was saved the trouble of answering by Ben. “He doesn’t know anything—“

“Then he can say so for himself!” Rey spat. “He’s a Stormtrooper! He must know why the First Order has been looking for you! Why you lied to me!”

Rey watched the way Ben dropped his gaze, a muscle working in his jaw. She had learned this was the look he wore when he was trying to think of a way to avoid her questions. Rey turned back to Finn. “Well?”

“I recognized his face,” Finn admitted, defeated. “But I didn’t know the First Order was going to come to Jakku, looking for him—“

“What else were you there for?” Rey demanded. She was lightheaded, drunk on rage. Her whole life had been turned upside down by two strangers who pretended to be clueless, but who clearly knew quite a bit. And now she was caught up with them, another point of interest for the First Order. Unkar would give her away in a heartbeat. She would never be safe, again.

“We were looking for a different target, Lor San Tekka, the old man,” Finn hastily explained. “In Tuanul. He wasn’t there, so we were ordered to burn the whole village. I decided I wasn’t going to kill for them, so I ran. The First Order has all kinds of targets—I don’t know how they knew about—about him,” he finished lamely, looking at Ben.

Ben had sank back into the pilot’s seat, his face hidden by his hands.

“So they did follow you,” Rey thought aloud. “And they told the First Order you were here…” She tried to steady herself, to resist the urge to smash the inside of the ship she had helped repair. For better or worse, she was stuck with Finn and Ben, and would have to make peace with them long enough to get to Onderon.

“You made me a promise,” she reminded Ben sharply. “To take me home.”

“I will—“

“ _Now_ —“

He emerged from his hands, a look of exhaustion and fear and annoyance on his face. “I can’t—“ He gestured toward the control panel. “The ship doesn’t have enough fuel for a second jump. We took heavy fire down there, and we’re lucky to be in one piece—“

“So then where are we going?”

He sighed. “Some place safe.”

Rey threw up her hands in exasperation. “You need to stop with those half-answers. You’re only safe because of me—because I fixed this ship. You—“

“—owe you my life, I know.”

“So where are we going?” She repeated.

He was chewing the inside of his cheek, glaring at some place away from her. “Takodana.”

“Maz?” Finn queried.

Rey turned to look at him questioningly.

“Maz Kanata,” Finn elaborated. “Space pirate. She has a refuge down there.”

Rey groaned. “Good—more criminals—“

“She can help us,” Ben interrupted. “They won’t be asking the same questions as the New Republic if we tried to dock in one of their ports.”

Rey allowed herself to sink back into her jump seat. Her anger was beginning to burn out, and she suddenly felt very tired. Her eyes fell back to the relic on the floor and she picked it up.

“What is that?” Finn asked.

Ben leaned over his seat and snatched it out of Rey’s hand, locking it into a nearby compartment. In the split second the latch was open, Rey saw a shining black hilt.

“Nothing.”

“It’s a relic,” Rey supplied, glaring at Ben. She watched him freeze suddenly, then throw his hands up in exasperation, as though Rey just agreed to kill them all.

Finn’s eyes were narrowed, staring at the back of Ben’s head and back toward Rey. “Like a… like a Force relic?”

“Oh, so you know what the Force is,” Rey said, her voice unusually high and sing-song in her anger. “Everyone seems to know everything, except me…”

“I’ve just heard the stories—“

Rey glared at Ben, who seemed to decide on ignoring them. “So are you going to tell me why the First Order’s after you, or do I have to guess?”

Ben responded by sinking deeper into the pilot’s seat and closing his eyes.

Rey turned to Finn. “Do you know?”

Hesitation crossed his features. He knew something—that much was obvious—but he was reluctant to speak. “I’m just a Stormtrooper,” he said, as though that was a sufficient explanation for everything.

“But surely you know something—like why they used the words ‘hostile fugitive’ back at Niima—“

Ben had suddenly turned around to join the conversation, his face drawn and eyes burning. He gripped the pilot’s seat for support, his knuckles white. “You need to stop—“

“So tell me the truth!” Rey shouted.

Ben buried his face for a moment, his dark hair forming a curtain around him. He groaned.

“I’m not going to turn you in,” Rey added acidly, guessing the reason for his reluctance and feeling hurt by the suspicion.

He emerged suddenly, dark eyes flashing. “He’s building a weapon,” he snapped. It was clear who “he” was in reference to. “But he needs me—he needs Force-users…”

Rey was taken aback by the revelation. She turned, wide-eyed, to Finn. “Is that true?”

“He’s a Stormtrooper!” Ben repeated Finn’s earlier excuse, waving a frustrated hand. “They don’t have security clearance—they don’t know anything—“

Rey thought back to their conversation about the Force, at the foothills of the Plaintive Hand. It was only two days ago, but it seemed so far in the past… “Force-users… just any Force-user, or someone powerful?”

He glared at her.

“Is that the real reason you agreed to take me off Jakku?” Rey continued, unperturbed. “To keep me away from the First Order, in case they came looking?”

“Does it matter? You’re getting what you want—“

“Yes, it matters!”

“Why?”

Rey couldn’t articulate a response to that.

“ _Why_?” Ben pressed savagely. “Tell me why it matters so much—tell me why you trust Finn so easily, but everything I say is up for investigation!”

Rey pointed to Finn, her eyes still trained on Ben. “Because he hasn’t lied to me!”

Ben let out a sour laugh while Finn wore a look of uneasy diplomacy, his hands up. “Look, guys—“

“For all I know, you came straight from the First Order, too—“

A look flashed across Ben’s face suddenly, menacing and cold. For a moment, Rey was sure Ben would reach for his blaster and shoot her where she stood. When he spoke, his voice was low and unfeeling, sending a chill through Rey’s heart. It was as though all of the air was suddenly stolen from the cabin, filling the cockpit with the cold, unforgiving pressure of space. “I’ve had enough of your questions,” he hissed. “And I’ve also had enough of your attitude—making demands like you own this ship. You’re just a scavenger from a junkyard planet, too small to be of note to anyone—so don’t stand there and act like you know even the first thing about Snoke or the First Order—or the galaxy, for that matter. I’m taking you to Onderon as we agreed, and you should be very, very grateful I didn’t leave you behind for the First Order to find. Do you understand?”

Terror laced through Rey’s veins as she finally recognized Ben for the dangerous man that he was. She didn’t dare blink, and a single tear escaped down her cheek. It hurt to breathe, and she struggled to find her voice. When she did, it was a furious and terrified whisper.

“Yes.”

Ben’s dark eyes flashed to Finn.

“Yes,” Finn replied immediately, not quite making eye contact. He shrank into his jump seat. “Yes,” he repeated more clearly.

Ben ran a shaking hand over his eyes, closing them. “In the back, there’s a hatch to the lower level—there’s another room with a refresher and a place to rest—I’ll let you both know when we reach Takodana.”

Finn reached for the door immediately, holding it open for Rey to pass through first. Ben’s unspoken order to be left alone was salient and clear.

The room was twice as large the cockpit above, equipped with a set of double bunks built into one wall and a narrow table and kitchenette on the other. An impossibly small door led to the compact refresher, and a pile of clothes and personal effects lay in the corner. One bunk had the clear signs of Ben sleeping there at one point.

Rey sank into the bench behind the table, Finn taking the space next to her. They stared straight ahead through the ship’s windows, neither speaking a word to each other until the ship settled, well on its course through hyperspace.

 

* * *

 

Ben finally unclenched his throat when he heard the trapdoor swing shut, letting out the breath he had been holding. He sank into the pilot’s seat, drained. He shut his eyes, digging fingertips into his temples as he tried to clear his mind.

… _You came straight from the First Order…_

Ben rolled his shoulders, trying to shrug off the weight those words had over him. Perhaps it would just be easier to tell her the truth; at least Ben wouldn’t have to struggle with hiding everything from her, arguing with her, and perhaps then she might actually listen…

That, or run off in terror.

He rested his forehead in his palm, and when he shut his eyes, he could see the sterile laboratory, the long window behind which stood half a dozen science officers, watching.

Waiting.

Waiting for Ben to demonstrate.

He was standing in one room while the nameless condemned sat restrained in another. He took a deep breath, trying to focus. _They were waiting,_ he reminded himself. If he took too long, they would report his lack of progress to the Supreme Leader… A jolt of fear coursed through Ben… He couldn’t disappoint him, not after Snoke had rescued him from Luke—had saved his life, understood the darkness that warred within him, promising to teach him to control it…

And he had… Ben was more powerful than ever… still just a child, barely eighteen, he now had abilities far beyond his family’s darkest fears… they had thought him an uncontrollable monster then, but what did they know… They didn’t see him now, they didn’t understand what the _right_ kind of training could do for him.

A much younger Ben looked up, taking in the row of stern faces and flat expressions. There, in the middle, was the First Order’s Chief Science Officer, Commander Hux. His father, Brendol Hux, had engineered the Stormtrooper program, but the younger Hux had advanced that technology into a new kind of elite warrior… and Ben was their star pupil…

Ben turned his attention back to the blank wall before him, closing his eyes. He focused, willing his mind to travel through the Force until he was looking at the convicted prisoner. Ben took a steadying breath, and focused…

His fingers played with the cuffs of his sleeves as he stared at the prisoner, blindfolded and struggling in his bonds. The condemned couldn’t see him, of course, because Ben wasn’t completely there. Ben reached out with his hand, summoning the memories of his previous training; he had done this before… he could do it again… just one more time, so the Supreme Leader could see…

A flick of his wrist, and it was done.

In the TIE fighter, Ben jerked back to reality. The memory was only seconds, but it clung to Ben like a thousand desperate hands, pulling him back to the Darkness. He let his fingers sink through his hair, pulling it at the root.

Suddenly telling Rey the truth felt tantamount to suicide. She would join the ranks of all the others if she knew what Ben really was: a half-thing, part human and part monster, ripped from the pages of some bizarre mythology, destined to live between two worlds and never quite belonging… She would abhor him, fear him like all the others who came before… and worst still, she would be in danger… if the First Order ever captured her and realized she had crossed paths with Kylo Ren, then she might find herself locked in a laboratory deep in space, never again seeing the light of the sun or feeling the heat of day on her skin…

A wave of nausea passed through Ben, assuring him of his resolve.

They would refuel in Takodana. Finn could find his way into hiding and Ben would take Rey to Onderon, as promised, before continuing the final leg of this bizarre, twisted journey: Lake Natth, located in the furthest reaches of the planet Ambria.

 

* * *

 

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think he was trying to be a dick.”

Rey turned sideways to look at him. “You don’t know him at all.”

Finn shrugged. That was mostly true. “I just think he’s trying to protect you.”

Rey snorted, her face a wash of skepticism.

“Look, the less you know about what the First Order does behind closed doors, the better,” Finn continued.

They were sitting side by side in the lower level of Ren’s TIE. The ship had made the jump to hyperspace an hour before, and the weight of silence was becoming unbearable. Above them, Finn could hear Ren occasionally moving about.

“They have entire flagships dedicated to experiments and all kinds of secrecy—super weapons, training programs, propaganda—you name it. The First Order has killed people for knowing about less—“

“What was your job?” Rey interrupted. The anger was gone from her voice, replaced by mild curiosity. She had been slouched in her seat, but sat up straighter. “When you were a Stormtrooper?”

Finn thought about it. “Sanitation, mostly,” he admitted, a little sheepish. “I worked on the _Finalizer,_ which was a top science vessel. I was assigned to the elite FN Corps—like a Special Forces training group—but I acted out of line during training simulations, so my Captain assigned me droid work as punishment.”

“What’d you do?”

He shrugged again. “There was this other trooper—we called him Slip—he struggled. I would always go back for him, against Captain’s orders, and even though the training sim was a success, Captain Phasma said I put the whole mission at risk. One man’s life is an honor to pay for the First Order,” he added bitterly, remembering his years of loyalty conditioning.

Rey was frowning at him. “And they punished you for that? For saving your friend?”

Finn broke eye contact. “It’s just the way the Order’s run; honor and loyalty to the First Order before all else. You know the only people allowed a memorial or a grave marker are those who gave their lives in active service? Soldiers who die in combat. That’s it. A general will be tossed into an unmarked grave if he lives into retirement.”

“What do you know about these weapons Ben was talking—“

“Ben?”

Rey faltered. “Ben, yes,” she repeated, waving a dismissive hand. “That’s his name. Or at least the name he gave me.”

“Oh.”

“Do you know what kind of weapon he was talking about?”

Finn hesitated. “It could be any number of things,” he answered truthfully. He could hazard a guess as to which specific program Kylo Ren had been a part of, but he wasn’t going to offer that information to Rey. “I know there’s plans for a planet-destroying super weapon, like the ones utilized by the old Empire. There’s the elite Stormtrooper program, which I ran from… advanced starships, hyperspace trackers, satellites…”

“He said they needed Force users.”

Finn let out a deep breath through his nostrils. “The Supreme Leader…” he began, then hesitated. “Well, I guess I don’t know… The rumor is that he’s an old Dark side Force user from the Outer Rim—that’s where the Empire disappeared to, after the Battle of Jakku—“

“The what of Jakku?”

“Battle,” Finn answered. “Between the Empire and the rebels almost thirty years ago. It was the last stand of the Empire before they disappeared into hiding. Anyway—the story is that Leader Snoke sort of took over the remnants of the Empire after Emperor Palpatine died. In the Academy, we were taught that Snoke had always been an ally of the Empire, but…” He shrugged. “Some old buddies of mine from the Academy were assigned to research units—deployed to uninhabited planets to search for resources: food, minerals, that sort of thing… but I overheard a few of them talking about it in the barracks one night, when we shared a base on Kowak… they were actually searching for Force relics and Force users… the whole research operation was just a cover so no one looked too closely at what Snoke was doing…”

Rey inched closer to him. “What was Snoke doing?”

“I don’t know—some freaky science project led by Commander Hux, I’d guess. Hux’s father was a top officer in the Empire. He designed the Stormtrooper program I was in…”

Rey was watching him, her eyes wide with curiosity, but there was no fear or anger there. “Do you know anything about Onderon?” She asked.

That stirred something in Finn’s memory. “That’s where you’re going, isn’t it?”

“It’s my homeward,” Rey told him, a little sadly. “I haven’t been back since I was a child…”

Finn thought about it. “I don’t recall the name—do you know the star system it’s in?”

Rey shook her head, embarrassed. “I was so young—“

Finn looked up toward the room’s ceiling. “Well, he would probably know…”

Rey’s face suddenly took on a mask of annoyance. “I’m not asking him.”

“It’s probably fine,” Finn said, referring to Rey’s planet. In truth, he had no idea. Onderon could be a lively planet under the protections of the New Republic, or it could be a debris field, reduced to an asteroid colony after weapons testing by the First Order… He certainly hoped for the former…

Suddenly the hatch overhead opened, and a set of boots appeared, followed by the rest of Kylo Ren—or Ben, as Rey was calling him. Finn decided he might as well do the same.

Ben was holding Finn’s blaster rifle and the one they had stolen in Niima. He placed them on the table. “Clean the sand out, and don’t let them out of your sight,” he instructed. Finn, who was staring at him in a mix of wonder and fear, thought Ben suddenly looked ill. There were dark shadows around his eyes, and his voice was heavy when he spoke. Finn wondered if Ben had been running the whole time he’d been missing from the First Order. Would that be him, in a few weeks’ time? Would he finally grow too tired to keep running, or make a mistake that would lead to his capture?

“We’ve got ten minutes left of hyperspace, and then we’ll be approaching Takodana from the Western Hemisphere,” Ben continued, sinking into the lower of the two bunks. “It would be best if we used different names—I’m sure Unkar Plutt told the First Order everything he knew, and they’ll be watching… You might as well keep Finn,” he added, nodding at him.

Rey looked between them curiously. “Why…?”

Finn cleared his throat. “It’s made-up. In the First Order, Stormtroopers don’t have names—we have identification numbers. Finn sounds kind of like my ID.”

Rey turned back to look at Ben. “Well, then I guess that means you can keep yours, too—“

Ben frowned. “Ben is my real name.”

There was a pause. Rey and Finn both stared at him, then at each other.

“Oh,” was all Rey managed to say. “I thought—I mean, I guess I wouldn’t be surprised if you made that up.”

He didn’t look offended by that revelation. “Just call me ‘Captain,’ then. Half those smugglers just go by job titles anyway—it won’t look out of place. You’ll definitely need something else,” he added, looking Rey up and down.

“Nomi Sisk,” Finn supplied. “She was the barmaid in Kowak.”

“Sure.”

“So Finn—“ Rey pointed each person out. “Captain. And Nomi. Got it.”

“Have you ever been to Takodana?” Ben asked, and Finn realized the question was directed toward him.

“Er, no,” he answered. “I’ve heard about it—a couple people in the Corps took shore leave there once or twice.”

“We’re going to land outside the castle, and then go straight to Maz—don’t bother talking to anyone else—don’t even look at them. We get some repairs, some food and fuel… you can find your ride there, my fa—I’ve heard there’s always people taking on stowaways for work in the cantina,” he said brusquely. He looked at Rey. “Then you and I will head out once Finn’s gone.”

She must have still been incensed from their earlier argument, because her arms were folded and she merely nodded her understanding.

Ben ignored it. He ran a hand over his face tiredly, then stood up. He climbed through the hatch and back into the cockpit without another word.

Finn turned to Rey. “Like I said.”

She raised her eyebrows questioningly.

Finn pointed toward the ceiling. “He’s not trying to be a dick, he’s just bad at being nice.”

He could see her struggling not to smile, and he grinned.

 

* * *

 

Takodana was more green than anything Rey could have ever imagined.

She and Finn joined Ben in the cockpit, watching the mountains and forests fly by as their ship descended onto the planet’s surface. There were even lakes and rivers, brilliant blue pools interspersed with the green of the forest, reflecting the clouds and the silhouette of their ship.

Ben landed in a small lakeside clearing, ignoring all the repair alerts beeping at him from the computer’s queue. The ship touched down roughly, nearly knocking Rey and Finn off their feet.

“Sorry,” Ben muttered, half-glancing over his shoulder at them. “These ships aren’t made to land like this.”

Rey straightened up, adjusting the blaster around her shoulder. She had replaced her staff with the new weapon, feeling strange carrying both.

Ben reached for the hatch before looking them both over. “Maybe we should find you both new clothes. You look out of place.”

Rey and Finn both looked down at their own clothes, then at each other’s. Rey felt entirely comfortable, but she could see how Finn struggled to pass for a smuggler with his nice boots and sleek all-black jumper and pants.

Ben led the way through the wild underbrush, and between the creeping branches of trees, Rey could see the towers of a stone castle on the other side of the lake.

It was cooler here, much cooler than Jakku had ever been, and Rey almost felt chilly. As the clouds passed overhead, rays of sunshine occasionally broke through and glittered across the lake like jewels. The air was crisp and clean, heavy with the perfume of the forest. Rey could smell rich earth and something fragrant and woody. All around them was the sound of birds chirping and other woodland creatures scurrying past. Rey wanted to stay, to take it all in, but Ben’s gait was already much longer than hers, and Rey was falling behind. She ran to catch up, her eyes darting from the right to the left to take everything in.

The castle itself was an ancient stone structure, half-carved into the rocky mountainside that overlooked the lake. It was adorned with flags and banners from every planet and civilization in the galaxy, including ones that hadn’t existed for a millennia. They flapped in the breeze, welcoming visitors into the cantina.

Ben led the way silently, holding open the heavy wooden doors for Finn and Rey to pass through.

They were hit first by the blaring sound of music, accompanied by laughter, drinking, and a hundred different conversations. Then came the smell—something savory and a little spicy wafted into the entry, making Rey’s stomach grumble. She had never smelled anything so _good_ before, and was prepared to argue that the food smelled even better than the forest outside.

The cantina was dimly lit by a mix of lamps and filtered light from high windows, casting some areas into heavy shadow while others were bright. Rey followed close behind Ben and Finn, completely ignoring Ben’s orders not to look at anything.

It was like Niima Outpost if Niima had actual infrastructure and real money flowing through its veins. Humans and aliens alike were huddled around tables and the bar, doing business or relaxing, a diverse melting pot of all the cultures the galaxy had to offer. The walls were covered in artwork and the floor was filled with a mismatched assortment of furniture: tables, couches, tobacco pipes, cushions, and chairs of every design were cramped together. The cantina was crowded and noisy, and almost no one glanced their way.

Then, near the kitchens, a tiny alien woman with magnified goggles and a grey skullcap caught sight of them. Her eyes widened, a smirk playing around her lips. Silently she gestured that they should follow, picking up a tray with drinking glasses.

This must be Maz Kanata.

They took seats around a circular table, with Maz running one arm along its surface, scooting the leftover remnants of a meal to one side.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Maz said, directing the comment to Ben.

“I’m not here for trouble—“

“And yet trouble always seems to find you,” she said. “Just like your father.”

Ben didn’t reply to that.

Maz turned to Rey and Finn. “And who are your companions?”

“Stowaways.”

Maz smirked, unswayed. “I imagine there’s a lot to discuss. But first you must be hungry—“

“Just a quick meal, and then we need to get going—“

Maz completely ignored Ben’s protests, at ease with herself. She filled their glasses with an amber liquid, directing one of her staff to bring over a tray of food: various fruit, cheeses, and meats adorned the platter, hastily laid out around a loaf of bread. Rey wanted to try everything, feeling herself come alive at the taste of real food for the first time since Iziz. It was even better than she remembered.

Maz, neglecting her duties as host and barmaid, joined them at their table. She directed her line of questioning toward Ben, and Rey suspected the two knew each other beyond passing familiarity. They were having a conversation Rey only half-understood.

“Do they know you’re here?”

Ben shook his head.

Maz looked thoughtful at that. “All right… But do they know you’ve left?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t think they’ve worried themselves about me after dumping me on my uncle.”

Rey’s ears perked up as she chewed a mouthful of bread. Obviously Ben had to have come from a family, but this was the first time he had mentioned them.

“Dear child… you don’t really believe that. She _will_ help you—”

“He needs a ride out,” Ben said, changing the topic and nodding toward Finn. “Know anyone taking on work?”

“What kind of work?” Maz asked.

“Doesn’t matter—the further the better.”

Maz turned to Finn, her face full of curiosity. She reached for her goggles, magnifying the lenses. Then, she suddenly climbed up on the table, moving closer.

Finn leaned back in his seat. “Uh, what is she doing?”

Ben watched Maz with tired resignation, tearing a piece of cheese between his fingers. “I don’t know…”

Finn looked at Ben sharply. “ _What is she doing?_ ”

“If you live long enough, you see the same eyes in different people,” Maz said, now only inches from Finn’s face. “I’ve seen your eyes… you have the eyes of a man who wants to run.”

Finn’s face hardened. “You don’t know a thing about me… where I’m from… what I’ve seen. You don’t know the First Order like I do,” he said quietly. “They’ll slaughter us. We all need to run.”

Maz studied him a moment longer, then returned to her seat. She looked around the cantina, then pointed to a group of humans and aliens near a window. “You see them? They’re heading for the Outer Rim—ask for Malek, he’s their captain. They’ll be able to take you where you’re going. They’re leaving tomorrow.”

“Speaking of leaving,” Ben began, but Maz interrupted him.

“Always in a hurry.”

“I need repairs. _Fast_ repairs.”

Maz nodded at him. “I can help you. But there is a price.”

Ben reached for his purse, but Maz stopped him. “Not money,” she told him, placing one tiny hand across his arm.

He glowered at her, appearing to read her mind. “You know that’s impossible.”

She shook her head in obvious disagreement. “No.”

Rey watched as Ben clenched and unclenched his fists. She had no idea what he and Maz were talking about, but whatever it was, it seemed to be a heavy price to pay.

“Just try,” Maz continued. “You will be surprised, I think. She’s not so delicate.”

Ben seemed to consider her. He let out a sigh, a muscle working in his jaw.

“That is my price—“

“Fine.”

“Good. Then I will get that in order. You will all need a room for the night,” Maz continued, looking around the table. “On me. Fill up. Relax. And we will speak later.” Her eyes found Rey’s, and for a split second Rey was sure Maz would crawl across the table toward her as she had done for Finn. But she merely sidled away, disappearing into the crowd of the cantina.

“Okay, she’s really creepy,” Finn said. “What did she mean by the whole ‘eyes’ thing?”

“Maz is as old as this castle,” Ben told him, reaching toward the platter for a piece of fruit. “And she has only two rules: no politics, and no war. People have used her castle as a refuge for a thousand years. She’s seen a lot of faces in her time.”

Pleasantly full, Rey was beginning to feel a little sleepy.

Ben slid out of his chair, casting a cautious glance around the room. “I’ll go get our things in order—you two stay here and rest. And watch what you say.”

Finn gave him an appraising look, which made Ben frown. “Is, uh, booze on the agenda, Captain?”

Ben shook his head at him, but relented. “Sure.”

Rey and Finn didn’t need to be told twice. While Ben left to handle their ship’s repairs, Finn talked Rey into trying a glass of mead, which was soon followed by a glass of Corellian brandy and then Sunberry wine. Rey knew what alcohol was, but she had never tried it; it was far too expensive in Niima, and wasn’t worth the rations she would have to trade it for. The mead was rich and slightly sweet, while the brandy was sharp. Rey sputtered after the shot, gagging as the alcohol burned her throat.

“Okay, I don’t like that one,” she told Finn, who had taken a gulp of mead to wash out the taste of his own shot.

“It’s strong,” Finn agreed, grimacing. “But it gets the job done.”

“You mean gets you drunk?”

“Exactly.”

Rey laughed. Her belly was pleasantly warm, as was her head. Even her body felt loose and relaxed, and she reached for more fruit from the tray. “This is really good,” she said. “We don’t have anything like this on Jakku.”

“We rarely had it either,” Finn told her. “Our meals were just the basics—slop portioned out to specific macronutrients, and it tasted just like it sounds. The higher-ups got the good stuff. But once, on sanitation rounds, I had to clean up after a big meeting, and they barely touched anything.” He lowered his voice, which was unnecessary in the cacophony of the approaching evening in the cantina. “So I stole it all—I brought it back to barracks and shared it with a few guys.” He smiled at the memory. “It was the best thing I ever ate. Until this.”

It was after the glasses of Sunberry wine that Rey was struck with a brilliant idea.

“He should be here! He should be, y’know, drinking this!”

Finn’s cheeks were flushed. “Who?”

“ _The Captain!_ ” Rey hissed in a stage-whisper, leaning over the table.

Finn grinned widely at the idea, chuckling. “I can’t picture him drinking.”

Rey pulled at the corners of her mouth, tugging them down with an exaggerated frown. “He’s always so serious—“

Finn set his face into a scowl that looked just like Ben. Rey laughed heartily.

“You look _just_ like him,” she told Finn approvingly. “Except his brow does this—this furrow—here—“ she reached toward Finn’s face, squeezing his eyebrows together. “Ha! There!”

She and Finn collapsed in the back of their seats, laughing.

 

* * *

 

Some time later, long after the sun had gone down and the cantina music became faster, the elusive third member of their party returned to the table. Ben’s eyes scanned over the various empty glasses on the table, at the picked-at food, and finally between the flushed faces of his two companions.

“What are you two doing?” He asked, keeping the amusement from his voice.

“Ben! I mean Captain!” Rey stage-whispered, suddenly shooting up from her chair. She stumbled and Ben caught her. Rey giggled, sinking into his arm. “Good _hic_ catch.” She smiled up at his frowning face, tapping one finger against the tip of his nose.

“We’re going upstairs to bed. Now,” he commanded, not unkindly, turning to face Rey toward the flight of stairs. He had no idea how he would get her up there without her falling and breaking her neck. He might have to carry her.

“You’re—you’re not having fun,” Finn slurred. “We’re having—we’re having fun.”

Ben regarded the empty glasses again. “How much have you had?”

Finn held up two uncertain fingers.

“Three,” Rey replied with conviction. Then her face screwed up in thought. “Or four.”

Ben reached for the drink in Finn’s hand, taking it away.

“Yeah, drink it!” Finn jeered, and Rey cheered him on loudly.

Ben fought the smile that was threatening to break across his face. He set the glass down, out of reach. “Upstairs. Now.”

When neither Finn nor Rey made any real effort to move, Ben grabbed them both by the arm, pushing them in front of himself as he marched toward the stairs. It was difficult progress, as the rest of the cantina appeared just as inebriated as these two and blocked their path.

“Hang on,” Rey said, grabbing onto the bannister like it was a life raft and she was out to sea. She dropped to the floor and let out a surprised “Oof!”

“Oh, shit—“ Finn exclaimed, blinking as he bent over to help her.

Ben slapped his hands out of the way, kneeling next to Rey. “Come on, let’s get you up.”

Rey pulled one ankle across her knee. “Lemme just…there!” She pried off one boot and tossed it aside.

Ben grabbed Rey’s forearm in one hand and her discarded shoe in the other. “You know what’s upstairs? More drinks,” he told Rey.

Finn clapped him on the back as Ben pulled Rey to her feet. “See? See… you—you can have fun!”

Ben shook his head, but Finn and Rey followed him without too much protest. Rey had to be half-carried; apparently only wearing one shoe was affecting her sense of balance.

There was a mechanical lift installed in the castle, designed to take overnight guests to their rooms in the upper levels—perhaps because they were often too drunk to navigate that many flights of stairs.

Rey and Finn giggled when they entered the narrow lift. Ben pressed the button for their floor, which seemed to delight Rey. She managed to push four more before Ben pushed her hand away. She rolled back against the mirrored wall of the lift, cheeks flushed, staring at Ben.

“Why are you so serious?”

In spite of himself, Ben looked at her in confusion. “What?”

She shut her eyes, dragging her finger tips down her cheeks, tugging her eyelids down. “You’re always _sad,_ ” she managed, sounding somehow more coherent in the lift than she had in the cantina. She pulled a face. “You’re always _glowering._ You should—you should have a drink with me and Finn,” she added, her face splitting into a wide grin at her idea. She turned to Finn, and the two sank into each other’s shoulders, smiling at each other.

Ben shook his head. “No thanks.”

He hadn’t had alcohol—other than the occasional sip at formal events—since he was a teenager. It hadn’t sat well with him back then, and Ben had yet to forget the hangovers he and the others used to try to hide from Luke.

Before his chest could seize at the thought of the old Jedi master, Rey and Finn protested loudly, pawing at his shoulder and begging him to have just one drink. Ben lied and said he would, but only in their room.

Finn collapsed on the sofa, but Ben led Rey toward the nearest of the two beds. She collapsed on the foot of it, reaching for the duvet and wrapping it around herself.

“Nope, not yet,” Ben said, yanking the covers off before pouring two glasses of water. He gave one to Rey and tapped Finn’s face with the back of his hand until the other man woke up with a start. “Drink this first.”

“I wanna sleep,” Rey mumbled.

“No,” Ben said with the air of a very patient parent interacting with a child. Both of them would have miserable hangovers in the morning, but the water would lessen the effect. “I said we’d all share a drink first, remember? You have to drink with me.”

“Oh yeah…”

Rey sat up straighter, chugging the water. Finn sniffed his, then followed suit.

“All of it,” Ben coached, watching them with a raised eyebrow.

Rey gasped for air, wiping her mouth with the back of her arm. She set the empty glass on the floor then threw herself back onto the bed. Ben covered her up with the duvet. She was curled up tightly, one shoe still on, and was soon fast asleep.

Ben straightened up, running one hand through his hair as he turned to check on Finn. He was slumped on the sofa, snoring loudly.

He knew he should be annoyed by their irresponsibility, but Ben couldn’t bring himself to scold them. Instead he took care to lock their door and window before settling himself on the other bed, fully dressed. He stared at the dark ceiling for a bit before shutting his eyes and praying he would just fall into a dreamless sleep.

Tomorrow was going to be a very, very long day.

Ben rolled over, adjusting his position. He could see Rey’s silhouette in the darkness, fast asleep. He replayed their interaction over and over in his head, his arm tingling where Rey had grabbed it. She must not be mad at him anymore, he thought, and the knowledge softened his heart, sending a small smile to tug at the corners of his mouth.

For the first time in a long time, he slept soundly.

 

 


	7. the Creator and the Teacher

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Ben head to Onderon while Finn leaves with a smuggler. Rey finds her childhood home in Iziz.

 

“… _You will lead these children. They will serve you. And one day soon your father will pass down his teaching to you, and you will learn to do what he did. It will be your life’s work to take children like these savages and hammer their malleable minds into whatever shape you so require. They will be tools built for the work at hand. This is my gift to you, boy. One day your father will die. One day soon, I fear. And you will take his place.”_

Those words were spoken to Armitage Hux almost thirty years before, when Hux was still a child, not much older than eight or nine. It had been Gallius Rax, the short-lived Counselor to the Empire after Palpatine’s death who spoke to him. But he had been killed in the battle of Jakku, and it was now Grand Admiral Sloane who protected him from his tyrant father, Brendol, and ensured that the younger Hux had a place in the burgeoning First Order.

Not long after reaching the safety of the Outer Rim—after Snoke gathered up the battered forces of the Empire into his fold, and renamed them the First Order—Hux was put to work. He was in charge of the child soldiers, trained from birth to obey and act upon command. Hux protected Sloane, who was perhaps the senior-most ranking official still alive after the Battle at Jakku, and in turn she protected him. He was given every bit of training his own father had received, and was allowed to work in the laboratories and training academies. When Hux was sixteen, he inherited his father’s Stormtrooper program and improved performance by seven percent in only six months.

After his father’s unfortunate demise at the whims of a Parnassos Beetle, an event over which Hux lost no sleep, the young man set course on an even more ambitious project.

He knew of the Force, and had grown up on the stories like most children in the Empire. He had learned of the Jedi and the Sith, of the Clone Wars and Order 66. He had absolute trust in his Stormtroopers, overseeing every aspect of their training and personally building every minute of their schedule until their behavior was predictable and seamless, but Hux wanted more. He didn’t want to work on his father’s legacy, he wanted to be remembered for his own…

With Brendol out of the way, Hux could advance through the First Order’s command. Hux insisted Sloane allow the creation of an experimental science branch, an offshoot of the existing technology departments. This was where his first super soldiers were built, the key feature of the codenamed Oracle program. One day these super soldiers would be cloned, replacing the majority of the Stormtrooper forces and leading the First Order to victory throughout the galaxy.

Order 66 and the ensuing galactic war made it difficult to find Force users young enough to enter Hux’s experimental pilot program. Hux, now a Commander with his own department and resources, assigned a branch of his Stormtrooper academy to scour the galaxy for Force users under the age of ten. Alien or human, it didn’t matter. None of them were expected to survive the pilot program, anyway. The beginning steps were to simply isolate the debilitating and fatal variables.

Hux implemented much of the same Stormtrooper training as he did within his Academies, which were now supported by Captain Phasma. But with the addition of Force abilities, Hux was now able to train reflexes into real-time responses, training his soldiers to react before danger arose. They fought longer and harder, and recovered quicker. On the side, he kept blood samples of the most successful soldiers in the event Snoke finally cleared him for a new clone army.

If the First Order was going to supersede the New Republic as the dominant power in the galaxy, then they would need an army that could defeat every enemy from starship to tiny rebellion, from Jedi to corrupted Sith Lords. Leader Snoke was impressed with Hux’s ambitious experimental training program, but his attention was wrongly fixated on the spiritual side of the Force-abled soldiers, rather than the scientific. During a quarterly presentation of his latest findings, almost five years into his research, Snoke asked Hux the impossible: isolate the Light, and weed it out.

It was like asking Hux to eliminate atoms or chemical bonds. It simply could not be done without destroying the function of the entire specimen. Hux argued he could potentially render the Light side inert—enough loyalty training should be sufficient—but Snoke was adamant.

Hux was assured of his progress, but as of 23 ABY, he had yet to do as Snoke ordered and completely eliminate any weakness in his enhanced soldiers. The more he pushed—utilizing Sith relics to enhance the soldiers’ natural ability—the more his subjects deteriorated, dropping and dying like flies. The Force users weren’t strong enough to contend with so much pushing, Hux had argued, but Snoke remained steadfast.

The First Order was experiencing a series of growing pains, its worst yet, and all available resources were being funneled into technology, leaving Hux to defend his experimental program to skeptical ears at the quarterly leadership meetings on board the _Supremacy._ These generals were satisfied with the Stormtroopers Hux was turning out, why did he need to waste so much energy on a soldier who was—thus far—purely theoretical and not past the testing stages? Hux was certain Snoke was about to cut off his support, but then, against everyone’s expectations, Snoke allowed for one more round of experimentation on one condition: Hux use Snoke’s aspiring proteges.

Snoke often kept two or three Force users of his own, warriors trained in the Dark side, to enforce unofficial First Order business throughout the galaxy. When Hux’s team prepared the lab for their arrival, Hux was shocked to find that their new subjects weren’t warriors at all.

They were teenagers.

There were three of them, two boys and a girl, whisked away from a Jedi training academy that was destroyed right under Luke Skywalker’s nose. The initial briefing had only the basics—names and ages of the teens, and from where they had come—but Hux did more probing and discovered that the oldest boy—Ben, he was called—had been responsible for the destruction of the school. He was of particular interest to Snoke, and Hux soon learned why.

Ben was powerful and quick, picking up on the exercises and absorbing the training faster than any subject before him. While he was eager to please, he was also hot-tempered and petulant, an arrogant child who believed he would become Snoke’s apprentice one day.

Hux would make him earn it.

This group of potential soldiers was so successful that Hux’s discretionary budget was multiplied and he was given his own starship, the _Finalizer,_ a mobile research facility entirely under his command. Almost overnight, Hux went from a man to be laughed at to one to be admired, and better yet, feared. He surpassed his arrogant father’s highest achievements at half his age, finally carving a place for himself among the elite of the First Order. They would need an army to rule the galaxy, and Hux would be at its head.

The only thing that could snuff out the spark of triumph and bring the entire program to its knees was the Supreme Leader and his vanity.

Snoke was pleased with the Oracle program, of course. It had curried Hux special favor with Snoke, allowing Hux access to the Supreme Leader directly. But Snoke, itching for an apprentice to destroy the New Republic and the last Jedi, was impatient and arrogant. Witnessing the successes of the Oracle program, Snoke insisted on untested modifications, pushing the soldiers past their limits. His interference meant Hux was constantly doing damage control, writing and rewriting protocol and training. The teens—now young adults—were desperate to prove themselves to the Supreme Leader and labored on.

The group was eventually codenamed the Knights of Ren, moving out of the laboratory and answering directly to the Supreme Leader. In fact, the way Snoke spoke about the group, one might conclude that it was Snoke who created them, and not Commander Hux. Sitting through one tortuous meeting after another, Hux had to bite his tongue. _He_ was the one who kept the vision in spite of scrutiny, who labored on from one failed experiment to the next, who kept his head high even when the commanding officers of the First Order laughed in his face. _He_ should dictate the continued training of the Knights, _he_ should be rewarded for years of labor…

In time, Aayla and Darin reached their zenith, but Ben’s ego almost matched that of the Supreme Leader’s, and so he willingly underwent anything that was asked of him, no matter how horrific or unnecessary. When Snoke welcomed Ben to his side as his apprentice—now renamed Kylo Ren—Hux watched on helplessly as his most promising subject was warped, stolen from his destiny as an elite warrior and corrupted into Snoke’s vision of a new Darth Vader. But these three were not Darth Vader—they were not Sith, they were not witches born from the night and the subject of childish fairy tales. They were elite and highly-trained soldiers, the product of science and technology, Force be damned.

Kylo caved in the end. Snoke pushed too far, and drove him away. Snoke refused to accept responsibility, of course, and satisfied himself with blaming Hux and his training methods.

“You were supposed to drive out the Light,” Snoke reminded him.

They were in the auditorium of the _Finalizer,_ Hux standing in the center while Snoke’s hologram flickered from overhead. Snoke was seated squarely in his throne while Hux stood at attention, silently accepting the dressing-down that was entirely undeserved. Hux didn’t know what to say in response—other than a litany of verbal assaults that crept to the forefront of his mind—and so he remained silent.

Snoke sighed, a heavy breath escaping his chest through his nose. He eyed Hux narrowly. “You said you had good news.”

“There are reports that Kylo Ren was seen on Jakku,” Hux replied stiffly. “Accompanied by a scavenger and an unknown male—“

“But he escaped,” Snoke interrupted. “Shot down six TIE fighters dispatched to intercept him.”

Hux bristled. None of this was his fault. “We know Ren is still in the TIE-Space Superiority Fighter prototype,” he began. “This confirms our information that he fled the Rinn Mining Colony and crash-landed on a nearby planet—Jakku.”

The Supreme Leader was watching him, waiting for Hux to continue.

“Our TIE fighters are unable to track Kylo Ren through hyperspace, so it is impossible to know where he has gone. That being said, his ship is reported to be heavily damaged and wouldn’t have gone far. With our hyperspace tracking prototype, that narrows the window to possible jump sites for hyperspace travel, and we know the ship he’s in. It’s only a matter of time before he’s forced to make landfall for repairs and supplies.”

“Your plan is to wait, then.”

Hux wanted to scream. He knew Snoke was baiting him, and so he held steadfast, refusing to give the Supreme Leader the satisfaction of a reaction. “We already have spies alerted throughout the sector.”

“Send the other Knights to this window of opportunity,” Snoke finally said. “If Kylo Ren does show up, they will be best equipped to bring him back. Alive,” he added pointedly.

Hux nodded curtly. “Very well, Supreme Leader.”

“Were there reports of the stolen relic?”

“None, Supreme Leader, but we have no reason to doubt that Kylo is hanging on to it.”

Snoke thought for a moment, a crease forming between his eyes. “What information do we have about this girl?”

Hux didn’t see how that was relevant. “The Niima junk boss says she’s a sand rat scavenger like all the others. Ren reportedly hired her to repair ship damage he acquired when fleeing the Rinn mining colony.”

“He fled with her?”

Hux adjusted his weight minutely. “It appears so.”

Snoke’s blue eyes narrowed in thought, but he didn’t share those thoughts with Hux. A moment later he said, “You’re dismissed, Commander.”

Hux let out a frustrated sigh as the hologram flickered away. He let his hands fall, his shoulders slump, and he squared his jaw—a posture he would never take in front of the Supreme Leader. He turned on his heel and marched out of the auditorium with the intention of heading for his office and calling Aayla and Darin to his side. They would need to be briefed on their new instructions.

As Hux descended through the elevator toward the laboratory, he decided that if Kylo Ren was found, he wouldn’t be handed back to the Supreme Leader right away. Hux would make sure there was a back up plan in the event that Snoke finally pushed too far and destroyed Kylo completely.

 

* * *

 

“Are you mad at us?”

Ben gave her a look, a quick shake of his head. “No.”

She shut her eyes. “I’m mad at us. My body’s mad at us.”

“Drink these,” came Maz’s voice, echoing around Rey’s head with entirely too much force. She pried her eyes open, and saw a glass of some thickened red liquid in front of her. “It will help the hangover,” Maz added, setting an identical drink in front of Finn. “You aren’t the first, and you won’t be the last to over-do it.”

Rey, her head cradled in one arm as she slumped over the table, pulled the drink toward herself. She straightened up to take a sip, grimacing. It was savory and slightly bitter, full of pepper and something that tasted like bread, but the nausea dulled. She took another sip, forcing the drink down. She opened her eyes again, and saw that Ben had a smirk on his face.

“What?” She asked exasperatedly, feeling very put-out that he found their situation highly amusing.

He shook his head, but he was still smiling. “Nothing.”

Rey groaned.

“I’m sorry, Rey, I should have stopped you,” Finn said from elsewhere at the table. Rey turned her whole body to look at him. He was puffy-eyed and grey, but he didn’t look half as bad as Rey felt.

“Why did it hit me so hard?” She asked him. “You look fine—“

“You said you’ve never had it before,” Finn explained, rubbing his temple with his fingertips. “Soyour hangovers are usually worse. It’s my fault—“

“I’m going to kill you,” Rey mumbled.

Ben checked the time. It was absurdly early in the morning, but Ben had dragged both her and Finn downstairs with the proclamation that he was leaving in an hour, no matter what. She and Finn showered quickly, changing into the disguises Ben had found for them, then dragged themselves into the cantina. The room was mostly empty, save for the sleeping travelers who had passed out mid-drink the night before and the occasional early-riser.

Ben, who was sitting so he could see the stairwell, straightened up when he saw a familiar face descend.

“That’s your ride,” he told Finn. “I spoke to his crew yesterday—they’ll take you to the Outer Rim.”

Finn looked over his shoulder. Standing there was Malek and a few others, taking cups of caf from the bar.

Finn turned to look at Rey, who suddenly felt sharp and alert. She had known in the back of her mind that Finn would be leaving them, but it still came as a punch to the gut when the moment arrived. She would never admit it aloud to either of them, but Ben and Finn had become something like friends to her these past few days… and now she would never see Finn again, and before long, Ben…

“Are you sure?” She asked, her eyes pleading with Finn to change his mind.

He frowned, looking quite like Ben in that moment. “Come with me,” he said.

Rey looked back at the smuggling group. They were donning jackets, preparing to leave… Her eyes found Finn’s. “Don’t go,” she said. “Come with me to Onderon—“ Her eyes darted to Ben, expecting him to deny her, but he sat quietly with eyes focused elsewhere.

Finn shook his head. “We couldn’t stay—it’s too dangerous—“

Rey felt a stinging in the back of her eyes. “But…”

“We can go to the Outer Rim together,” Finn continued earnestly. “Find work—we’ll be safe.”

Rey thought of the hot sands of Jakku, of the thousands and thousands of tiny marks on the wall in her home, of all the nights she struggled to sleep, alone… She had waited so long to find her family, she couldn’t give up now…

She shook her head. “I’m sorry…”

Finn reached out and took her hand, squeezing her fingers. “Be safe, Rey.”

In another moment, he was gone.

Rey bit her lip to keep herself from crying, feeling the ghost of Finn’s hand over her own. She watched Finn join Malek’s group, talking to the Captain. He glanced back, offering Rey a nod before disappearing through the castle doors.

Rey took a shuddering breath, wiping a calloused palm against her cheek swiftly. She dared a glance at Ben, expecting cool indifference and perhaps an order to get moving.

But he was watching her quietly, his face uncharacteristically soft. It was the same way he had looked at her at the Plaintive Hand Plateau, when she had described her nightmare vision inside the Observatory. He had been full of tenderness then, and Rey was beginning to wonder if she imagined that moment these last few days… all they seemed capable of doing was arguing…

Rey realized Ben was waiting for her, so she sucked in a breath. “We should go, too.”

He nodded.

Rey got up first and Ben followed. He had already packed the ship with their belongings, and so there were no final errands or necessary goodbyes. Rey and Ben exited the castle to the cool morning air outside. The forest was damp with early morning dew, soaking Rey’s calves and the hem of her trousers. She adjusted the blaster over her shoulder, replaying Finn’s face over and over so she could commit it to memory… she doubted whether she would ever see him again, whether their paths would ever cross, but she hoped that if they did, she would recognize him.

The ascent into hyperspace was silent. Ben suggested she sleep in the bunk below, but Rey declined. She sat in her jump seat behind Ben, staring at the empty space that had been Finn’s.

 

* * *

 

Back in the castle in Takodana, a man stood up from his table, slipping away quietly. He reached for the comm in his pocket, adjusting the frequency for his contact in the First Order. Making sure no one was within earshot, he muttered into the comm, “Targets spotted in Takodana. They’re headed for Onderon.”

A bit of static, and then, “Copy that.”

 

* * *

 

Malek was exactly what Finn pictured when he thought of a smuggler. He was somewhere between young and middle-aged, slightly drunk with a crew as patched-up and indiscriminate as his ship. It was a cargo freighter, a VCX-100 model engineered in Corellia, and Malek told him they were meeting a drop-off in Chandrilla before heading to the Outer Rim.

Finn was given the same work as the rest of the crew: alternating cycles of flying, manning the comms and after-market guns, cleaning, and cooking. Once they reached Chandrilla, Finn would help unload the cargo from the freighter (which Finn learned was named _Ghost_ ) and load it onto their buyer’s ships. He would get a tiny share—a sliver of the rest of the crew’s earnings—but also a ride anywhere _Ghost_ was headed so long as he was willing to help out.

“Who are we meeting?” Finn asked, scrubbing dishes in the ship’s kitchenette.

Malek, who was resting nearby, didn’t open his eyes. “Codename is Huttslayer.”

That didn’t make a lick of sense to Finn, who paused in his washing to turn toward Malek. “What?”

“We never use real names,” said the ship’s first mate, a gruff Mirialan named Ulas. He was nursing a tobacco pipe from his place near the comms, his feet kicked up on an empty explosives crate with the headset nestled around his neck. “We go by the ship name, they go by a code—this one is Huttslayer… no one wants to admit they cheat the system, especially the politicians with commercial investments. They’d all be pointing fingers at those senate meetings instead of patting themselves on the back.”

Finn couldn’t possibly imagine what kind of organization went by “Huttslayer,” but he doubted it could be good.

“So what made you want to take up with us, kid?” Malek asked lazily. “What are you looking for? Revenge? Or money?”

Finn frowned. “Neither,” he answered truthfully. “I just wanted to get away.”

“Hmmm. That’s what your friend said back in Takodana, but there’s plenty of places to hide.” He sat up, looking Finn over carefully. “You’re not a teenager looking to travel the galaxy, either… so if it’s not revenge, money, or naiveté, then it must be bad news.”

Finn didn’t answer.

“I grew up in this life, myself,” Malek offered. “Dad was a smuggler, mom was a kitchen aid at the tracks in Corellia. Tobi—in the cockpit—he used to work on a different ship. An infamous ship. ’Til the captain got murdered a few months ago by the First Order.”

Finn went cold at that revelation, but Malek didn’t offer anything more, so they fell into silence.

They traveled along the Perlemian Trade route, cruising alongside other ships and occasionally stopping to avoid hyperspace collisions. Malek had returned to the cockpit to navigate the space traffic, occasionally talking to flight towers on Chandrilla’s surface.

Chandrilla itself was a paradise of a planet. Lush and fertile, with a near-perfect climate and weather pattern, it was home to nearly 1.2 billion inhabitants. The cities were never larger than a few hundred thousand each, scattered across the planet’s surface. Part of the New Republic, Chandrilla had a reputation for arrogance and dilatory customs, idealizing philosophers and artists. It regularly churned out politicians and ambassadors as the inhabitants of Chandrilla were well-educated in politics and frequently argumentative. In the Academy, Finn had been taught that Chandrilla was bloated and artificial, supported by stolen wealth accumulated after the war.

To enter Chandrilla, there were half a dozen entry points in the atmosphere, each closely monitored by the planetary government. From there, ships were directed to landing ports among the various cities. Malek entered from the south, joining a line of ships traveling toward the capitol, Hanna City. Instead of landing in port, however, Malek directed the ship to the outskirts, near the Hanna Wild Game Reserve. They flew over gates and fences, blowing past warning signs about no trespassing, until they reached a wide open field near an estuary.

“Prepare for landing,” came Malek’s voice over the ship’s comms. Finn grabbed hold of a door frame as the ship shuddered and descended, touching down with as much grace as a freighter hauling an AT-M6.

Finn kept his blaster strapped to his back even as the freighter doors opened to the temperate planet outside. He, Tobi, and Ulas began hauling crates of unknown contents onto the grassy field while Malek spoke with the leader of Huttslayer.

He was a human male, likely around Malek’s age, with tanned skin and dark, curly hair. He was smiling, obviously at ease with Malek, and Finn’s paranoia was only slightly quelled. The rest of the Huttslayer crew were just as mismatched as the crew of the _Ghost,_ a mix of young and old, and Finn wondered to whom they could possibly belong.

“So you’re the new one,” came a voice sometime after the ninth crate was hauled out, impossibly heavy.

Finn turned, wiping his brow, to see the Huttslayer leader standing over him.

“Poe,” the man offered, holding out his hand.

“Finn.” He took Poe’s hand, and Poe shook it like they were old friends.

“Maz told me you’d be joining the _Ghost_ ,” Poe said, smiling in familiarity. “You try that Sunberry wine?”

“Er, yeah, actually.” Finn paused, surprised but then not surprised by Poe’s revelation. Of course Maz Kanata had connections throughout the galaxy…

His anxiety must have shown on his face, because then Poe added as explanation, “Just as a head’s up. We’re pretty wary around strangers, but she said you could be trusted.”

Finn nodded. He didn’t know how to respond. “Makes sense.”

Poe clapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, so I gotta ask—I noticed your blaster—“

Finn’s heart sank.

“Where’d you find it?” Poe asked, looking over Finn’s shoulder at the barrel. “That’s got to be First Order, isn’t it?”

“Er, I stole it,” Finn replied, which was technically true.

“No kidding,” Poe said, a look of appreciation crossing his features. His eyes found Finn’s again. “So are you working with Malek now, or just passing through?”

“Passing through, I think.”

Poe nodded, a knowing look crossing his face. “You looking for work?”

“I’m looking to get lost.”

Poe glanced around to make sure no one else had descended upon their secret trade meeting, ignoring Ulas, Tobi and Malek dragging out carts to his own crew. “Got any skills? D’you know your way around an X-wing?”

Finn thought about his years in the Academy, and later FN Corps training. He was all but the perfect Stormtrooper before defecting, receiving top marks in combat, evasion, survival, and leadership… He doubted this was what Poe had in mind.

“I’m all right with a gun and a ship.”

Poe nodded. “You got a home?”

Finn shook his head.

Poe reached into his pocket, withdrawing a slip of paper with a series of numbers and letters printed. “This is my call sign. You ever want a new career, Malek knows how to reach me.”

Finn stuffed the card carefully in his jacket pocket. He was getting the strong suspicion Huttslayer was either a criminal endeavor, or else Resistance sympathizers. The First Order would argue there was no difference.

“Think about it, Finn,” Poe pressed. His crew whistled at him, signaling that the exchange was complete. He saluted Finn—the old Republic salute—before jumping into an escorting X-wing.

“Let’s go, let’s go!” Malek shouted as the Huttslayer’s engines roared to life.

Finn watched Poe and his crew take altitude before jumping to hyperspace.

“Finn, you coming?” Malek shouted from the cargo hold. His hand was hovering over the door switch.

Finn closed the distance, joining Malek and the crew of the _Ghost_ once more.

“Next stop is Daxam IV,” Malek told the crew. “It’s a long jump, so get comfortable.”

 

* * *

 

“…In the Inner Rim, so—“

The comms crackled, interrupting Commander Hux. He shot the device a dark look before accepting the call.

“Kelen, I told you not to send any calls through until my meeting was over,” he snapped.

“I’m sorry, sir, but it’s urgent. Kylo Ren’s location has been identified.”

Hux and everyone else in his office had frozen. Regaining a grip on himself, Hux replied, “Send it through.”

The comm’s lights lit up at the arrival of a digital message. Hux opened it up on his data pad, brows knit together as he scanned the contents. Finally finished, he brought the info onto the desk’s projector for Aayla and Darin to see.

“Maz Kanata,” Darin said, recognizing the castle. “He must be desperate to go there—too many prying eyes.”

“His ship took damage in the Rinn mining colony, and again on Jakku,” Hux told them. “He’s likely seeking supplies and repairs.”

“What’s the deal with Onderon?” Darin wondered aloud, skipping to the bottom of the report. “It’s just some wild jungle planet—there aren’t any relics there—not unless Saw Gerrera’s Partisans managed to hide something from the Empire.”

“Should we try to intercept him?” Aayla asked Hux. “Before he leaves Takodana.”

Hux thought for a moment. If they deployed now, they might find Kylo Ren in Takodana’s atmosphere. It would involve a chase, and the ship would have to be disabled before jumping to hyperspace—that meant military fighters and starships. “No,” he finally said. “It’s too short notice—by the time you make it to the surface, he may have already gone. The chaos will necessitate a military presence, and I don’t want Canady sending his army. We know where he’s going. Right now we lose nothing but time, but I will not risk either of you confronting him without support.”

“He won’t get away again,” Aayla promised, a dark look crossing her face.

“That is certainly the objective,” Hux said, studying her. Aayla had been particularly fond of Kylo Ren—their bond was obvious the day they showed up in the lab ten years before. Due to such a ridiculous attachment, she had taken Kylo’s betrayal personally. If it meant she caught him, then Hux didn’t care by what motivation. “But if we can keep him on the defensive—keep him running—then he won’t have time to come up with a counter-attack. We will wear him down.”

“He’s already destroyed the relics,” Aayla reminded him, her dark eyes flashing in anger. “Everything he stole from the lab, and the one that he has with him, now—“

“We must forget about the relics for now—“

“But the Supreme Leader—“

“I don’t care what the Supreme Leader says,” Hux hissed. It was an enormous risk to speak the words aloud. He almost expected the elite FN Corps to descend upon him and arrest him for such treasonous language. Aayla and Darin stared at him, stunned. They were forgetting that they ultimately belonged to Hux, and not to the Supreme Leader. The knowledge infuriated Hux. “This program existed outside of our Leader’s meddling, and it will continue to exist. The relics are a loss, yes—I don’t deny that. But they are not the heartbeat of Oracle. You are.” He looked at them both sharply, hands folded across his desk. “Do you think a better relic would have prevented Kylo Ren from treason?”

Aayla and Darin exchanged a hesitant look before both shook their heads.

“But why are we bringing him back alive?” Darin asked, unhappy. “He’s a traitor—we should just blow up Maz Kanata’s castle and take him out.”

Hux sighed. “The Supreme Leader wants him alive.”

“And he doesn’t expect Kylo to defect again?” Darin asked dubiously.

Hux bit back the irritation in his voice. “I do not presume to understand our Leader’s motivations, nor his arcane abilities—I suggest you do the same. More significantly, we need to know what caused the betrayal—the variable must be found and rendered inert if Oracle is to continue. We do not yet know if the weakness found in Kylo could appear in future subjects, or even in either of you.”

Aayla and Darin both glared at separate parts of Hux’s office, but didn’t argue further.

“Follow Ren to Onderon but do not engage until you are on the surface,” Hux instructed. “You may take whichever Stormtrooper unit you need—TN Training Corps is still on Jakku, but the others can be reassigned easily. The lab already has instructions to outfit you with specialized weapons.” Hux got to his feet, and the others followed. He took a deep breath through his nose. A tremor had begun to form in his hand from stress, and he clenched his fingers in irritation. If all went well, this would all be over in the next few hours. “ _Do not_ let him get past the atmosphere. Bring him straight here so that I may deal with him personally.”

Aayla and Darin nodded their understanding, and left.

Hux reached for his data pad, examining the updates to Kylo’s rehabilitation cell. It was already in its design stages when Kylo defected; Hux had begun to sense an instability in the younger man and was trying to prepare for it. It had held Kylo for all of two hours when he did finally break—and then Kylo escaped, destroying most of the lab and killing a dozen low-level scientists and Stormtroopers on his way out.

This would not be a repeat event.

As Hux waited in the empty corridor for the lift to arrive, his eyes fell on the crystal sculpture in the atrium. It had been a gift, an award given by First Order leadership to recognize Hux’s efforts in both the Stormtrooper and Oracle programs. It was ornately carved from a single Quarzite stone, an armored soldier rising from the razor-sharp stalagmites at his feet. The inscription on the plaque had some phony nonsense about the significance of the gift and the date on which it was given, but Hux’s eyes fell on the message underneath. He had read and reread the quote so many times that it was now committed to memory:

 

_Tell me what you regard as your greatest strength so I will know best how to undermine you;_

_Tell me of your greatest fear, so I will know which I must force you to face;_

_Tell me what you cherish most, so I will know what to take from you;_

_And tell me what you crave, so that I might deny you._

 

The words were attributed to the Sith Lord Darth Plagueis the Wise. He had been one of the incredibly few Force users who was also a scientist, studying and manipulating midi-chlorians as he searched for a way to defeat death. It was ironic that he was murdered by his own prodigy, and that irony did not evade Hux’s attention when it came to his own situation.

If he wasn’t stopped, Kylo Ren would continue to destabilize and destroy the First Order. Kylo may have slipped from their control, but he was still infused with the power of the Dark side and all his instincts were reprogrammed to kill. To fight. To destroy… He would start with the program that made him, and then when the bloodlust wasn’t quenched, he would move on to destroy First Order bases, ships, and finally its leadership. Hux wondered who Kylo considered his true master: himself or the Supreme Leader… The creator or the teacher…


	8. Close

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey learns the truth about her parents.

Onderon, it turned out, was a jungle planet located in the Inner Rim, not far from Jakku. There were a few hundred walled cities, huge fortified settlements built in the otherwise hostile and dangerous jungles on the planet’s surface. The largest of these cities was the sprawling capitol Iziz with nearly twenty-million inhabitants.

Ben engaged the cloaking shields upon entering the atmosphere to avoid detection by Onderon’s Planetary Border Patrol. “Do you know the neighborhood?”

“I’ll recognize it when I see it,” Rey replied, watching the city fly by as she crouched next to Ben. “Just drop me off anywhere you can.”

Ben turned to look at her, then back to the capitol flying past. It stretched on for miles and miles with no end in sight.

“How about landmarks?” He suggested, eyes raking over towering skyscrapers, bridges and canals, and labyrinthine trains. “Anything you recognize?”

Rey wracked her brain. She had dreamt of this moment for so long that she could no longer tell the difference between memory and imagination. She bit her lower lip, hesitating. She avoided looking at Ben, ashamed she couldn’t remember her home better.

“It’s fine,” she said. “I’ll figure it out.”

Ben sighed, pulling on the yoke and swinging the ship around. Once he gained some altitude, he set the ship to hover. He unbuckled his harness, turning in his seat to look directly at Rey. “It’ll take you years to search all those streets,” he told her.

Rey set her jaw. “Well, I spent years waiting on Jakku.”

“Do you remember the name of anything? A street, a school?”

“I told you—“

“Any landmarks? Anything we might recognize?”

“No!” Rey snapped. She was flustered, and Ben’s questions weren’t helping. “I’m sorry I was too young to remember anything—“ She could feel a stinging in the back of her eyes again, but she refused to let it spill over. She didn’t want to cry in front of Ben, not when she already felt so foolish.

He ran an impatient hand over his face, resting his forehead there.

“I’m sorry,” Rey apologized, her voice stiff as she glared through the cockpit, furious with herself. “But this isn’t your problem. You said you’d bring me home, and you did, so you can just drop me off anywhere. I’ll figure it out.”

Ben let his hand fall. Out of the corner of her eye, Rey could see him watching her.

Rey pointed to an abandoned factory. There was a wide open receiving dock between the stone buildings. “That looks like a good place to land.”

“I have a different idea.”

Rey looked at him.

His face was one of reluctance, and he ran his hand over his jaw, his fingers rubbing the scar on his cheek, before continuing. “I can search your memories—I can find things in your mind that even you don’t see. I can look for your neighborhood.”

Rey stared at him, mouth agape. “You can do that?” She repeated, incredulous.

“If you want.”

Rey considered the offer. The idea of someone rooting around in her mind was unnerving and impossible to comprehend, but if Ben could sort through the old memories and find what Rey failed to call forth, then she could be home before the sun was down. “Okay… Does it hurt?”

“No,” he said quickly, then amended, “It’s not comfortable, but it shouldn’t hurt if you don’t resist.”

“What do I have to do?”

“Nothing. You might feel strange emotions or see bits of memory—don’t focus on it, just let it come and go. It’ll take me a minute to find what I’m looking for. Er, it’s best if you sit down,” he added, looking over his shoulder at the empty jump seats in the back of the cockpit.

Rey took one, and Ben the other.

“Try to relax,” he instructed. He reached out an arm toward her, palm hovering just inches from her head.

Rey nodded her understanding, resisting the instinct to pull back from Ben’s hand. She took a steadying breath.

There was a pressure around her head, as though they had suddenly dropped altitude. She could feel the hair on the back of her neck standing up, her heart rate accelerating. Everything in her body was telling her that something was wrong, but she forced herself to ignore it. She shut her eyes, letting out a breath slowly.

_“Come back!”_

_“Quiet girl!”_

Rey shuddered, but Ben moved past the memory quickly. She saw Jakku, and the long lonely nights in her AT-AT. There was the bright green of Takodana, and a rocky island far out to sea. He pushed further, and Rey saw bits of an enormous city. It was impossible to tell if these memories were brand new or very old.

There was a fruit cart trundling along the uneven street. It was a hot summer day, and children were playing in the alleyway. Rey darted between the others as a single jogan fruit fell from the cart, bouncing once, twice, rolling down the street until it landed in Rey’s hand… She looked around, and walked across the street. There was a towering church with a bell tower that rose higher than any of the nearby buildings. Rey and the neighborhood kids took lessons there every morning… Rey turned around, looking up the street. On the corner was the grocery store with a blue painted door and white walls…next to it was the clothier, and then a jeweler…all with the same blue doors. Rey looked to her left, and saw her childhood home.

It was a cramped apartment on the third floor above a cobbler. There was a small balcony with a cat sitting on its rails, tail flicking. Half the windows were open, and thin linen curtains were blowing in the summer breeze. Rey stepped forward, and in the window she could see the tiny shape of her doll, the same one she had brought with her to Jakku…the only physical proof of her home on Onderon… Rey shielded her eyes from the sun, peering through her hand toward the balcony door. She could see a dark shape moving on the other side.

Her parents.

Rey darted back across the street, dodging carts and pedestrians. Her hand reached for the door to the apartment building, ready to rip it open. Her fingers grasped around the handle—

Rey gasped, suddenly back to the present. She looked around wildly, expecting to see her neighborhood, but it was only the walls of Ben’s ship, black and shining compared to the red and white brick of her old home. She looked down at her hands; she could feel the empty space where the jogan fruit had been clutched in one palm while the other had reached for the hot door handle… A tear suddenly fell in the empty space, and Rey realized she was crying. She reached up toward her face, wiping her cheeks roughly.

“I saw it,” she told Ben. “I saw my old house… and my neighborhood…it was so vivid, it was like I was there again.”

Ben had withdrawn his arm. “I saw it, too. I think I can find it.”

Rey looked at him. Another layer of Ben’s outer shell had been peeled away, closer to revealing the man underneath. He was dark and cold on the surface, but full of warmth and hidden pockets of light and life if one knew where to look. She could feel a gentle thrumming in her chest, as though two hearts were beating there, synchronizing as one. She found Ben’s eyes, and swore she could feel inside of him, too.

There was anger and pain, and surrounding it all an unbearable loneliness. He was full of tattered holes and jagged edges, and Rey found herself wanting to run her fingers over their surfaces and smooth them down. There was darkness, ominous and palpable, but there was also light, creeping into the dark places like water into rock…

And then it was gone, carefully sealed away behind a wall Ben had built around himself to keep the painful things away.

Rey struggled to find her voice again. “How do you know how to do that?”

A muscle twitched in Ben’s jaw as he broke eye contact. “I was taught, a long time ago.”

“Can I learn it?” She asked.

A dubious look crossed his face. “It’s possible,” he allowed. “But it’s not a common skill. I had an aptitude for feeling minds already—I’ve always been able to. I was taught to hone that power,” he added bitterly. “To tear through minds and rip out memories.”

His tone told Rey that this was not a happy power.

“Anyway, we should probably start looking,” he added, getting to his feet and moving back toward the pilot’s seat.

Rey followed him with her eyes, a sudden pressure bearing down on her chest. Her lungs were constricted, and she couldn’t breathe—but she didn’t need to.

She was almost home.

 

* * *

 

What happened next, Rey couldn’t explain.

Ben directed her to the pilot’s seat while he sat himself on the floor, his back to the console. Legs crossed and eyes shut, Rey was sure he was meditating. When he began to direct her flight course, telling her to turn this way or that, she realized he was using the Force to navigate. It turned out Ben was very good at reading minds, and he was searching the memories of all the people below for the same street corner he had seen in Rey’s mind, looking for more information.

The yoke was sensitive, and it took Rey several tries to get her bearings in the ship. They flew to several corners of the city, Rey exiting the ship and running down countless cramped streets in the hope that this would be the one. Hours passed, and Rey was beginning to feel hopeless, but Ben assured her they were close.

Suddenly he stood up, taking the yoke from Rey’s hands. “I know where to go.”

Rey’s heart skipped a beat. “You do?”

“I saw it before, but… “ he trailed off, not bothering to finish the sentence.

The sun was setting, casting long shadows throughout the streets of Iziz. Ben flew a few miles to the north with the assurance of someone following a map. Wordlessly he landed the craft in an alleyway, ignoring the fact that he would undoubtedly block traffic.

“Here?” Rey asked, eyebrows raised as she appraised the limited view of their surroundings.

“It’ll be fine,” was Ben’s reply, and he armed the shields.

Rey climbed out of the cockpit, looking around. The air was hot like Jakku, but there was a humid breeze wafting through the streets. She jumped down from the TIE, walking hesitantly to the mouth of the alleyway. She looked around at the street, her heart sinking when she didn’t recognize it.

“Are you sure—?”

“It’s a few blocks down,” Ben said from the open cockpit, pointing.

Rey’s heart was beating wildly in her chest.

“Are you sure—?” Ben stopped himself from finishing the question, his face splitting into his characteristic frown. He sighed, climbing out of the cockpit.

“They’ll be there,” Rey said, and as she spoke, her voice confirmed it. She was suddenly full of a blinding new confidence, certain that she would find the old apartment above the cobbler. Her parents would be in the kitchen, perhaps counting their savings for a ship to take them to Jakku… the cat might even still be there, arthritic but lounging on the balcony. And in the street would be children, playing games of _tap taqieh_ and sticks, chasing after the fruit carts until they were called inside for dinner…

Rey found Ben’s eyes, and the sharp hold of anxiety that had been squeezing her heart suddenly released. This stranger had come into her life a week ago, sending it into a chaotic spiral, but he had also been Rey’s first friend. Their relationship was strained, full of bickering more than anything else, but there was a tenderness, too, a mutual understanding and familiarity…

Rey would miss him.

“Ben… thank you,” she told him sincerely.

He watched her for a moment longer, then nodded. “You’re welcome.”

She hesitated, wondering what was an appropriate farewell. She stuck out her hand to Ben, and he took it tentatively. When his fingers wrapped around hers, warm and calloused, Rey almost reconsidered leaving him.

Almost.

There was nothing else to say. Rey was sure he could feel all of her thoughts on the surface of her mind, and she knew he felt how deeply grateful she was for his companionship and help. They shook hands and Rey let go first, keenly aware of the ghost of his fingers that lingered against hers.

“And good luck,” she added, taking a few hesitant steps toward the street.

Ben nodded, but there was an uncertainty there. “You too.”

She watched him even as she walked out of the alleyway, offering one final wave before he was out of sight forever.

Rey followed the street in the direction Ben had pointed, her eyes drinking in her surroundings as she waited for the spark of recognition to flare inside of her. The local kids ran past her, called to their homes for supper as evening approached. Some shops had already retired for the night while others were turning on their lights, signs alerting that there was hot food or drink available. It smelled particularly good to Rey, and she decided she might take her parents there while they reconnected.

The further she traveled, the more familiar the street became. The buildings were in slightly worse shape, cracked and weatherworn, white paint chipping away from red brick, but they looked beautiful to Rey. From the balconies overhead, women were collecting laundry they had hung up to dry while men helped prepare children for dinner. A few street dogs sniffed at Rey, barking once or twice as she passed their territory. There, just above the rooftops, was the bell tower of the church… the same one Rey had seen in her memories… Rey clutched the blaster and staff straps against her chest so they wouldn’t bounce as she half-walked, half-ran toward her old home.

What would her parents say when they saw her? Would they recognize her? Rey imagined hugging them and wondered what it would feel like to be so loved. She wondered what kind of food they ate, whether the dusty linen curtains were still in the windows of her bedroom… She would have so many stories to tell them, about her fights over scrapping rights, the things she built, and how she had never lost hope or forgotten them… She wouldn’t be able to tell them about Ben, but she could say a kind stranger had finally rescued her from Jakku and brought her home… They would stay up all night, talking well past morning and until each side knew everything about the other. Rey would know what her family had been up to for the last fifteen years, and there would be so much love that it would be like she had never been gone at all…

Rey was running now, reaching the familiar neighborhood as the shadows grew long and dark around her. In the distance she could see the row of white brick shops with the blue doors…

She reached the square, and looked around, blinking. The grocery was still there, although it was a furniture shop now… And across the street should have been the cobbler and the apartments, but there was only a shaky foundation, gutted and empty. A skeleton of a building hunched on the corner, shuttered and dark.

Rey frowned, turning around. The church was there, unchanged by time. And the grocer that was now a furniture shop, and the blue doors, and here—here should have been the tiny shops with the apartments up above.

There were just skeletons, charred and graffitied, little more than a pile of ash and shadows.

“Excuse me—!” Rey blurted, turning to a shopkeeper sweeping the sidewalk outside the grocery-turned furniture store. She jogged across the street as shop lights switched on in the impending twilight. “Excuse me—what happened to the apartments that used to be here?” She asked. She felt like an alien in her own body, as though this was a different Rey in Iziz and she was watching her from the outside.

The shopkeeper looked from Rey’s blaster to where she was pointing. He was several years younger than Rey, dressed in pants and tunic that were far too large for him. “It’s condemned.”

“I don’t understand,” Rey continued. “There were shops, and—“

“During the Troubles.”

“The what?”

He stopped sweeping, looking her over. His eyes fell back to the blaster strapped to her back. “You’re not from here,” he guessed.

“I grew up here, a long time ago,” Rey said hastily. “What troubles?”

“Last year,” he explained, broom forgotten in his hand. “There was fighting between the different gangs. This whole neighborhood was a war zone. An arsonist came through, lit up the cobbler and the one next to it, too. Took the whole structure with it.”

“But what about before?” Rey insisted. Frustration was building in her chest, threatening to spill out. “There was a family that lived above the cobbler—on the third floor—“

The boy shrugged. “I dunno—I just moved here from Yolahn—“

Rey looked around helplessly. Someone had to have known what happened, where her family had gone to…

“I can ask my grandfather—he grew up down the street—“

“Please,” Rey said, her voice sounding alien in her ears.

The shopkeeper disappeared inside, leaving Rey to stand on the sidewalk outside. She refused to look at the rubble across the street, refusing to believe it was there at all instead of the shops and crooked apartments…

An old man emerged from the furniture shop, an apron tied around his portly waist. He introduced himself to Rey, explaining that he lived on this street his whole life. He talked about the Clone Wars and the rebel cell led by Saw Gerrera coming through Onderon, the gangs that fought over territory and how this very corner was a point of contention. He remembered the grocery store and the old preacher who used to teach the neighborhood children to read and write, and he recalled the jogan fruit merchant. He explained that the apartments had been empty long before the Troubles, and thankfully no one was killed in the fire…

“But what about the families?” Rey asked, almost angry. “Years ago there were parents and a child—“

“Oh! You must mean the girl!” The old man said, awareness creeping into his features. He pulled a pair of classes from his shirt collar and placed them on his face, scrutinizing Rey. “You’re her!”

“No,” Rey said quickly. He was mistaken. She was the child of waiting parents, not missing ones. The old man didn’t know what he was talking about. She shook her head, trying to bring herself some clarity. “No,” she said again, repeating the lie. “I’m just looking for them.”

“Every body moved away,” he told her. “That whole corner.” He launched into a long-winded tale about the building’s history, about his feud with the cobbler’s elderly father and how he believed the old man a slum lord. He knew each of the families by reputation if not name, and told Rey exactly what became of all of them.

When Rey returned to her body, she found herself standing on the sidewalk outside the old cobbler’s. The shop was a stone and metal shell, and next to the shop’s entrance had been the door to the apartments up above. The door had been burned away, leaving a half-set of charred stairs to an empty hole above… There was graffiti spray painted in the stairwell, gang tags and cartoons and miscellaneous warnings to stay out…

It was all gone.

The words of the old man had struggled to permeate Rey’s brain, to string themselves together into sentences that made sense… and as she stared at empty sky where her balcony used to be, she finally understood.

Her parents had lived here fifteen years ago with a cat and a young girl… They were functional alcoholics, jumping from one odd job to the next and making reckless bets on the local pod racing to support themselves… When one debt turned into two, and two into four, they sought help by the neighborhood gang, but soon fell into debt with them, too… They had nothing left to barter and no one would loan them another peggat, so they asked around and heard about the junk boss, Unkar Plutt, in Jakku… He would buy anything of value, and her parents had one thing left.

They loaded their young child into a borrowed ship, trading her for sixty peggats, a blaster pistol, and two bottles of Corellian whiskey… That had been Rey’s price. That was what she was worth to her parents. They even bragged about it to the nosy neighbors as they drank all the whiskey and spent all the money in under a week.

They presumably died a few years later, first one and then the other, buried in a pauper’s grave somewhere in the poorest parts of Iziz. The apartment took a few more occupants over the years, falling into disrepair with the encroaching gang disputes, and was eventually abandoned completely. The cobbler left as well, alongside the spice merchant and the comm repairman that sat on either side, all moving their businesses to a safer part of town. The fire that destroyed it had almost been a blessing, scrapping the eyesight that attracted criminals and drug dealers alike. The entire structure was due to be demolished soon; a builder had purchased the property with plans to build a new fuel station. In just a few months, it would be as though the old shops and apartments were never there.

Her home was gone, and soon all the evidence would be erased entirely.

Rey’s eyes studied the empty space that used to be her apartment, trying to imagine the place where the balcony had been, and the open windows with the linen curtains, the space that might have been her bedroom…

They were never coming back…

Rey turned around, and spotted a dark shadow in the street, watching her.

It was Ben.

He hadn’t left, hadn’t set course for Ambria to finally move on with his mission and forget about Rey like everyone else…

“Don’t you have better things to do?” Rey asked, her voice hitching up an octave as she spoke.

He didn’t reply, taking a few steps closer to get a better view.

Unable to speak further, to explain the horrible truth that her home was gone and her parents were dead, Rey shook her head. Her arms wrapped around herself, fingers digging into her skin. She was certain she would crumble to ash and dust like the building behind her. A hole was opening up in her chest, taking everything with it. All those years, she had waited for nothing…

Ben’s face was half-hidden in shadow, and he was looking at the space behind Rey, perhaps imagining the apartment he had seen in her memories…

“Did you know?” She asked thickly, tears streaming freely down her cheeks, dripping onto her tightly-folded arms. _Did you see when you looked in my head?_

“I couldn’t be sure,” he replied, his voice soft and full of tenderness. His gaze dropped, and his eyes found Rey’s.

Rey shrank into herself. She wanted to disappear, to be destroyed and reduced to nothing like her childhood home, buried in a nameless grave like her parents, and forgotten entirely… What a foolish dream it had been to count the days in Jakku, to imagine what happy reunion awaited her… She was nobody. A worthless child sold to a junkyard, nothing more than a scavenger… She had never felt more alone…

“You’re not alone.”

Rey’s eyes found his again. Suddenly she felt like the five-year-old girl who had been sold to Unkar Plutt all over again. The loneliness threatened to crush her, turning to water and letting her drown…

She was suddenly swept up, wrapped tightly in something warm and firm and dark. Rey felt a sob escape her chest and she was sure it would cleave her in two, but Ben’s arms held her together. He was close enough for Rey to feel his heartbeat, to feel the jagged edges he hid deep inside himself, the same place where he kept the loneliness that matched Rey’s… But Rey knew there was also light, tiny islands of it tucked away quietly, beckoning Rey forth and letting her settle into the brilliant white sands… Rey sank deeper into his pull, willing herself to disappear inside him. She wanted to be filled with his scent, his touch, to disappear into the safety of his body and dissolve…


	9. Violent Delights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aayla confronts Ben and Rey, taking them both prisoner. Aayla confronts Rey, sensing her Force powers. She reveals the truth about Ben’s identity to Rey.

Night had fallen, but Rey had been unable to bring herself to leave the street corner. She sat on the sidewalk outside the cobbler’s, her back turned to what remained of her childhood home. A cool breeze ruffled through her hair, drying the tears on her cheeks, but it was much warmer than the nights in Jakku. It was late enough that all the lights in the surrounding shops and apartments had extinguished, its occupants fast asleep. No carts traveled down the narrow street, and the only sound was the distant train horn, making course through Iziz.

Rey couldn’t leave because she didn’t have anywhere to go.

She didn’t know for how long Ben had held her, but he was patient and tender, letting her cry into his chest as the illusion shattered around her. She had spent so many years waiting, and it had been for nothing at all… There was no one coming back for her…

Rey took a deep breath, her face congested from crying. But the tears had finally stopped coming, and a cold resignation was settling itself inside of her, turning her to stone. “You don’t have to stay,” she said for probably the fourth or fifth time.

“I know.”

Rey let out a humorless chuckle, but it came out like a bark. “You have better things to do.”

Ben shrugged, dark eyes downcast.

He was taking pity on her, and any other time it would have infuriated Rey, but tonight she let it all crash into her, rolling over her like waves until the next one finally drowned her. She didn’t care anymore.

“I can take care of myself,” she added without any real conviction.

“I know,” he repeated.

Rey shut her eyes, her forehead resting in the palm of her hand. More silence passed, and it was impossible to tell if it was minutes or hours, or even years. It all felt the same. She did admit to herself that it felt nice to share her misery with someone else, to have someone sit next to her on the dark street corner and just be with her.

“I was so sure they would come back for me,” she said to no one in particular. She turned sideways to look at Ben. “Do you know how long I waited? Almost fifteen years. I counted every single day…”

He opened his mouth to speak, but seemed to think better of it. A muscle twitched in his jaw, and Rey wished she could read his mind. She wanted to know what words had almost escaped.

She turned back to staring at nothing. “It’s so stupid…”

“It’s not stupid,” he replied with such conviction that Rey almost believed him.

She gave a non-committal shrug in response, one shoulder jerking up before falling down. “Would you have waited that whole time?”

He looked at her, his eyes ablaze with some inner fire, and Rey was sure he would finally speak the words he had choked down a moment before. His lips parted, but then his eyes widened, his head turning sharply to look at something in the darkness.

Rey’s sorrows disappeared instantly as the hair on the back of her neck stood up. “What—?”

But she never got to finish the sentence.

Ben suddenly grabbed her arm, yanking her up and running as something screeched past, a terrible high-pitched whistle that nearly split Rey’s head in two. An impossibly loud explosion ripped apart the air around them.

It was the last thing Rey was aware of before the world suddenly went dark.

 

* * *

 

Ben jerked awake, fighting the urge to vomit as a wave of nausea rolled over him.

“You might feel a little ill.”

His head snapped up, turning toward the voice. He knew that voice.

An armor-clad woman sat in a chair next to him, watching. She was half-skartis, half-human, with dark blue skin and slightly pointed ears. Ben recognized her immediately.

He pulled against his restraints even as they dug into his skin. He tried to call upon the Force, but another wave of nausea washed over him. A terrible headache was pounding behind his eyes, blinding him, and his mouth tasted like ash. His chest ached something terrible with each breath.

Ben’s eyes traveled past his captor to the sleek cell walls and durasteel door. He recognized the architecture of the First Order ship immediately, and felt his heart stop.

“There’s no point in struggling.”

Ben’s eyes found hers. Panic overwhelmed him as his sluggish brain registered what was happening. “Aayla, please…”

She slapped him, her palm sending a sharp sting across his face. It was numb where her hand had touched his scar.

“Traitor!” Aayla spat, her voice full of barely-controlled rage.

Ben pulled against his restraints again. He tried to call upon the Force a second time, desperately wondering why he couldn’t feel it. He felt like a wild animal, caged and frightened.

“Aayla…”

“You abandoned me,” Aayla accused, her jaw clenched. She looked like she was going to hit Ben again, but held back. “I would have followed you anywhere, and you left me—me and Darin.”

“You wouldn’t have come,” Ben told her, his voice full of unfamiliar pleading. “I tried—“

“I wouldn’t have abandoned the First Order because I’m not a traitor,” Aayla interrupted venomously. “First you want to leave Luke Skywalker, and then when that doesn’t work out, you want to run again… where to this time?”

Ben swallowed the lump in his throat. Each minute that passed was one minute he was closer to the Supreme Leader. “I was wrong,” he told Aayla, shaking his head. “Snoke lied—“

“You lied,” Aayla accused. “You lied when you said you would never leave us behind, not after what happened…” She shook her head and scoffed. “I should have known… You act like you don’t want your family legacy, but that isn’t true, is it? You _wanted_ to be powerful, to be important… The Skywalker legacy,” she added, each word dripping with disdain. “You think you have the right to control the galaxy, and the rest of us are just a bunch of nobodies in the way—“

“That isn’t true,” Ben hurried to say. “Whatever they told you—I wanted to get away—I didn’t want any of it—”

“No?” Aayla tested. Her dark eyes flashed dangerously. “You didn’t want to be Snoke’s apprentice? You didn’t get a special new name to go with your new role while the rest of us kept up the training, desperate to be half as good as you?”

“That was Snoke! He was controlling all of us—Please, Aayla… I can help you—“

She reached forward to dig her fingers into Ben’s arm, sharp and firm. A jolt of electricity coursed through him, burning and white hot. It was like a thousand knives were suddenly driven into him, splitting him open with unbearable pain, and he cried out.

She withdrew her hand. “Even Luke thought you would be a better Jedi… Tell me, _Ben,_ if Darin and I hadn’t helped you that night, would you have killed us, too? Were we just pawns in your quest for power?”

Ben looked at her, full of fear and desperate supplication. His skin still burned from her Force attack, and he half-expected her to continue torturing him for the pure pleasure of it. Pain had been Aayla’s strongest gift, and Hux had taught her to weaponize it.

“I knew I couldn’t defeat you in raw strength—not after last time,” she added, her black eyes traveling over the scar on Ben’s face. “So I had to find a way to disarm you. Hux thought I was insane when I suggested he fill the lab with Ysalamiri, but we synthesized the DNA pretty easily. It didn’t take much to weaponize it. We didn’t know how much would be enough to incapacitate you, so you’ll have to forgive me if we went a little overboard.”

Ben shut his eyes, fighting against the fear that erupted in his chest at the mention of Hux and his laboratory. He tried to center himself, to feel the threads of the Force that had suddenly become numb to him.

“The great Kylo Ren, brought down by a little lizard… There’s no point fighting, you’ll just weaken yourself more,” Aayla added. She stood up to her full height, eyes trained on him, and approached slowly. Her mask had broken into a look of pure disdain and loathing. “You know the Supreme Leader wanted you back alive,” she told him. “Even after your betrayal—your _weakness_ —he was still sure you would be the better apprentice…

“Perhaps it’s because of your bloodline… but your family legacy isn’t one of strength. It’s failure.” She traced a finger over Ben’s scar, and he jerked away from her hand. “Your great-grandmother was a slave. Your grandfather caved to compassion at the height of his strength, choosing his worthless son over ruling the galaxy… and I don’t think we have to go over what kind of cowards your uncle and parents were…”

She began to walk a lazy circle around him, and Ben followed her path with his eyes. “You’re lucky, you know… I would have given anything to kill my father.” She gave a derisive snort. “And the whole village with him… too human to be a true Skartis, too alien to be human. He thought I was an abomination…”

“Please… you don’t have to do this…”

Aayla stopped directly in front of him. “The Supreme Leader ordered me to bring you back alive. But he didn’t say it had to be in one piece.” Her fingers dug into Ben’s arm a second time, and he screamed.

She watched him writhe, her expression cold and void of compassion as she finally withdrew her hand. He slumped in his bonds, gasping for breath. “That’s it?” She asked. “You’re tired already? Hux used to torture us for hours… but that’s right. It was the Force that protected you, that made you special… And look how easily it’s been stripped away from you…”

Even without the Force, Ben could feel Aayla’s hatred and anger coming off her in waves. She blamed him for everything: for turning on Luke and destroying the Academy, for bringing her and Darin to the First Order, and finally for abandoning them… for being able to overcome the programming that had once controlled him but wouldn’t let go of Aayla… And she would make him suffer for it.

 

* * *

 

Rey was struggling against her bonds, searching for a weak point in the shackles and ignoring the burning as they dug into her skin. She needed to get out of here and find Ben.

The cell was bare and cold, full of metal walls and grated floor. The bulbs struggled to stay lit overhead, flickering and buzzing with effort. There was a single durasteel door on the opposite side of the room, locked by a glowing command pad next to it. Rey was shackled to a chair which she had been in the process of trying to rip out of the floor when the door suddenly opened.

A man Rey had never seen before was standing there. He was shorter than Ben and stocky in build with fiery red hair and a beard to match. He stepped in far enough for the door to slide shut behind him, but he otherwise didn’t move, choosing to stare at Rey instead.

“You must be wondering how your friend is doing,” he said. His voice was deep and accented, the words rolling off his tongue with ease.

Rey squared her jaw even as she felt her shoulders shaking with fright. She didn’t answer.

“My name is Darin,” the man continued, taking a single step closer. He remained out of Rey’s reach, looking around the makeshift cell. “We had to be careful until we knew you weren’t a threat,” he explained.

“What do you want?” Rey spat. “Where’s Ben?”

Darin ignored her questions, looking entirely at ease with himself. “How long have you been together? You and him.”

Rey set her jaw again. She wasn’t going to play this game.

“It can’t have been long,” Darin continued. “Fast friends?” He tucked his hands behind his back, rolling his weight onto the balls of his feet and back again. “I realize you won’t speak to me without something in turn, so I’ll offer this: tell me how you met him, and I’ll tell you how he is.”

Rey glared at him, pulling against her restraints. She couldn’t tell what kind of a game this was. “I’m not telling you anything.”

He shrugged, entirely unbothered. “Okay.” His gaze drifted to some spot on the wall while Rey glared at him. “We’ll be at the _Finalizer_ soon. We should be making the jump any moment now. They’ll get everything they need from you there.”

 

* * *

 

Back in Ben’s cell, his whole body was on fire, even his bones.

Aayla had relented in her torture of him minutes ago, and was now watching him from her own chair. Her face held a mixed expression of contempt and mild interest.

“Who’s the girl?”

Ben’s eyes opened, and he found himself staring at the ceiling. He lowered his head to look at Aayla. Something in the back of his mind stirred. Rey… where was Rey?

“I can tell she’s Force sensitive,” Aayla continued. “Is that why you took her? To train her yourself and destroy the rest of us?”

“Where is she?” Ben rasped, awareness creeping back into his body.

“Where do you think?”

Ben yanked at his restraints again, but they didn’t give.

“Darin’s talking to her, now,” Aayla continued. “Or he was… she’s a firecracker, that one. Certainly has the heart of a Jedi…”

“Don’t touch her…” The impotence of Ben’s threat was not lost on him. He was drugged and tied to a chair, unable to rescue himself.

“Something I don’t understand…” Aayla continued, frowning. “She doesn’t seem to know who you really are… so why are you keeping her around?”

Ben’s thoughts drifted toward Rey, toward a blinding white sun and endless orange desert… the Plaintive Hand Plateau, and the darkness that had almost consumed him… they had made a bargain, but it was so much more complicated than that, now…

“You care about her,” Aayla guessed, and there was a bitterness in her voice that wasn’t contempt or derision. It was jealousy. “The same way you used to care about me and Darin.” Aayla got to her feet again, closing the distance between her and Ben in a few swift steps. She swung one leg over Ben’s knees, straddling him. Aayla’s fingers intimately searched his shoulder and the back of his neck before grabbing a fistful of hair and violently jerking his head back. Aayla leaned into his ear, her breath warm against his neck. “What’s so special about her?” She whispered. Her cheek pressed against Ben’s, and it burned. “What does she have that I don’t?”

Ben tried to pull away, but Aayla pulled his head back further, exposing his throat and the scar that traveled across its surface. Beneath it, his pulse thrummed wildly. The fingers of Aayla’s free hand traced the length of the scar, hesitating over the muscles of his neck as he swallowed. She bent forward, her face pressed to Ben’s ear.

“I’m hurt,” she told him as her body pressed into his. Though he couldn’t see her face, Ben knew she was speaking honestly. “Have you replaced us so easily?”

She waited for a response, but when none came she pulled herself away with cold disappointment.

Ben groaned, searching for his voice. He felt so tired. Everything hurt, and part of his brain was begging for the release of sleep. “It’s not too late,” he told Aayla, his voice hoarse. “Turn this ship around… you’ll never have to go back…”

Her beetle black eyes were suddenly shining and overbright in the dim cell. “You know it doesn’t work that way,” she told him. “Snoke will call us back… it’s different for you…”

Ben grimaced as he straightened up in his chair the best he could. “Then we’ll break it,” he promised. “We’ll find a way…”

Aayla shook her head, full of cold resignation. “And go where? Our mothers think we’re dead. Luke won’t take us back. And nor the New Republic… there’s no place to go. And do you think Snoke will give up? No, Ben… And if you have any sense at all, you’ll stop fighting when we get to the _Finalizer_. I promise it’ll be easier.”

The name of the ship was like a bolt of electricity, bringing Ben back to his senses. Fear trickled through his veins once more, demanding Ben fight or flee.

Wordlessly Aayla turned toward the cell’s only exit, ignoring Ben’s pleas for her to come back and reason with him.

 

* * *

 

Rey’s cell door opened a second time, but instead of Darin it was a woman. She was clad in similar fabrics and armor, but she wasn’t human. Not completely, anyway. She had dark blue skin and black, jewel-like eyes perfectly positioned in a bald head. She was tall, perhaps as tall as a man, and imposing in her stance.

Rey watched her carefully, wondering what this person wanted. Darin seemed entirely uninterested in her, but this woman was staring at her with keen eyes.

“My name is Aayla,” she offered, stepping forward. “And you… you must be Rey.”

Rey let her chest rise and fall with a silent breath, but didn’t respond.

“Your friend is fine, if you want to know,” Aayla continued. “What did he tell you was his name?”

“I’m not telling you anything,” Rey spat, repeating the same words she gave Darin.

Aayla shook her head. “I’m not asking because I don’t know… Where did you meet him? Jakku, wasn’t it? You agreed to repair his ship. And somehow ended up traveling companions…”

Rey clamped her jaw shut.

“But you must have wondered where he got it… His powers.”

That stirred something in Rey’s chest, but she fought it back down.

“You could have them, too, if you wanted,” Aayla went on. “I sense the Force in you… wasting away in the Jakku desert… don’t you want something more? Don’t you want to _be_ more?”

Rey knew she was being baited. She turned her gaze to glare at a blank space of wall behind Aayla.

Aayla switched tactics. “I know you think I’m the enemy—swooping down on you like that. But you don’t know your new friend like I do. He’s a fugitive, and very dangerous. Surely you can see that… The man killed his own father. Drove his lightsaber straight through his heart.”

Rey’s eyes darted to Aayla’s black ones. Furious and frightened tears were forming behind her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. “Liar.”

“I know you grew up on some backwater planet, but you must have heard the stories… a black witch, moving through the galaxy like a shadow, bringing death and terror in his wake… The First Order tried to restrain him—to use his powers for good—but he’s a monster, and monsters can’t be tamed…”

Rey shook her head stubbornly.

“He used you,” Aayla continued. “Lied to you. To protect himself. So why are you protecting him? You don’t even know him.”

“I know what you’re trying to do,” Rey spat. “And it won’t work—”

“Kylo Ren.”

In spite of herself, Rey stilled.

Aayla’s face split into a cold, knowing smile. “I knew that name would ring a bell… Kylo Ren, grandson and heir to Darth Vader, escaped from our custody and has been on the run since. The First Order isn’t your enemy—we tried to contain him, to stop him. But he isn’t like you or me… he’s full of Dark power, capable only of destruction and death… The Supreme Leader mistakenly believed he could teach Kylo to hone his power…”

Rey grit her teeth so hard she was sure they would shatter. She wouldn’t believe it. She refused to.

“Did he tell you about the relic he stole?” Aayla asked. “Or did you find out on your own?” She shook her head. “Did he tell you what he was going to do with it? It’s okay if you believed him… But Kylo has been scouring the galaxy for more, building up his power… Whatever he told you, it wasn’t true either.”

Aayla stepped forward, reaching for Rey’s face in what was meant to be a comforting gesture, but Rey jerked away, her shackles clanging against the back of the chair.

“Let me go,” she hissed.

Aayla looked at her sadly. “You know I can’t do that… and what would you do? Go back to Onderon? To Jakku? You saw that there’s nothing for you there… but you could have a place in the First Order… you could be great, and powerful… you could stop people like Kylo Ren from destroying the galaxy…”

Before either of them could speak, a series of thuds echoed in the distance. Aayla and Rey both turned to look at the durasteel door, as if expecting it to swing open any moment. There was a pause, then suddenly the banging was directly overhead. The light flickered and then died, plunging them into darkness.

Aayla ignited her lightsaber a second later, illuminating the tiny cell with brilliant red light. She steadied herself, ready for an attack, but none came. The lights came back on, and all was silent.

Rey and Aayla stared at each other. Wordlessly Aayla stormed from the cell, lightsaber in hand. The durasteel door slammed heavily behind her.

 

* * *

 

Something dark and twisted had been reeling deep inside Ben’s chest, giving him focus. He replayed Aayla’s words to himself over and over, using the fear and anger to center himself. The effects of the Ysalamiri were fading, crushed by the rising darkness in Ben. It spread through him like a poison, tainting everything it touched. Soon the Darkness had begun to cloud his mind—his vision, his thoughts, everything was blanketed by shadow and he existed only on instinct.

Ben wasn’t aware of suddenly breaking through his restraints, of forcing open his cell door with only a thought—the elite Stormtrooper guard all reached for their blasters, jumping into position, but their necks cracked like fragile birds and they collapsed one after the other. Ben stepped over their bodies, carried by a force that wasn’t conscious. The Darkness that had sat buried away was now in control, and Ben was merely its vessel.

He wasn’t armed with a blaster, and his lightsaber was still locked away in his ship on Onderon, but he didn’t need them. Hux had trained Ben to fight without weapons until it was second nature, using only the power of the Darkness. Ben moved through the narrow hallways of the First Order transport ship, destroying whatever was in his way, droid, computer, and human alike. His savage rage burst lights and crushed walls as he moved, as though a violent ripple followed him. A siren blared while lights flashed overhead.

_Warning… prisoner breach… warning…_

The airlock doors in the corridors all slammed shut at once, locking into place. Ben tried to pull it open, but it held. Through the tiny window he could see Aayla on the other side, running down a perpendicular corridor. She sensed him and froze, staring at him. Next to her a spitting red blade burst into life.

He would kill her.

The thought came to him from some dark recess of his mind, carried on the back of a whispering shadow… It drove into him like a pike and all his anger and fear flooded around it. Hux and the Supreme Leader had destroyed his life—turned him into a monster—and Aayla was so sure she would drag him back… Hate and rage coursed through him until there was nothing left, and every cell in his body was telling him to kill Aayla…

Ben placed his palms on the fire door and focused. If the First Order was so certain they made him a monster, then he would show them one…

The metal lock gave way like sand under his hands, sinking to the floor in a melted heap. Ben jerked his head and the door followed suit, yanking out of its airlock and sliding out of his way. Wires and cables ripped out of the walls, brought to life and twisting before Ben as they searched for their target. A shower of sparks exploded around him, but Ben marched through them, unperturbed.

Aayla had run. Ben could feel her in the Force, running down the corridors to find Darin. She wasn’t willing to take him on alone…

Ben thought about her, about how she was so sure she would be the one to bring him to Snoke… he hated her for it, hated her almost as much as he hated Hux and Snoke and Skywalker, and all the rest of them… he would kill them all, destroying every purveyor of his suffering, one by one… And she would be the first to go…

The airlock doors flew open with ease as Ben descended upon his target. It was all a blur to him. For the first time since his escape from the First Order, he allowed the Force to flow through him freely, carrying him forward. More significantly, it was the first time he opened himself up so willingly to the Dark side since killing his father… The violent energy, imprisoned for so long, exploded out of him in gleeful release, eager to consume and destroy everything…

Ben turned a corner and entered a new corridor, and felt something flicker in the Force. He stopped in his tracks, hesitating. The rising Dark side suddenly halted, frozen by Ben’s awareness of this new presence in the Force…

It was bright and familiar, tugging at the periphery of Ben’s mind.

Rey.

Ben followed this new presence in the Force. As it grew brighter, the Darkness in him faded to an ember. A door burst open without him having to touch it, and he knew she was there.

Frightened eyes stared back at him as Rey froze, shackled to a chair.

She knew.

And she was terrified.

The Darkness drained from him so quickly that Ben had to catch himself on the doorframe. He could feel it withdrawing back to the dark places inside of him, leaving him empty and cold.

The shackles fell from Rey’s wrists, clattering to the floor.

“We have to go,” Ben gasped, finding his footing. He could feel a thousand thoughts in Rey’s mind, imaging a hundred different escape scenarios; half of them were about getting away from him. Ben ignored the sharp pain in his heart—he didn’t have time to worry about that. This ship was headed for the _Finalizer_ and Aayla and Darin were still loose in it, somewhere… “Follow me…”

Rey, terrified and unable to think of a better plan, did as she was told. Ben led the way toward the ship’s hangar bay, forcing open security doors and blasting away Stormtroopers with the Force.

_Warning… partial engine failure… emergency protocol engaged…_

The ship was in critical condition, its stabilizers destroyed by Ben’s violent Force power. Before he could react, it lurched, violently dropping out of hyperspace. The ship swung wildly as systems failed and rebooted, sending Ben and Rey crashing into its walls and each other. The main lights failed, and the hallways were now illuminated by the red glow of the back up generator.

 _Warning,_ the ship’s computer called, echoing over the intercom. _Catastrophic engine failure… back up generators online at thirty-one percent… begin evacuation protocol_ …

There was no time to go after Aayla and Darin. Ben clamored to his feet, grabbing Rey’s hand and pulling her with him. They darted under sparking computers and had to backtrack twice due to fire… Finally they reached the small hangar bay, flooded with surviving Stormtroopers assisting with the evacuation. They fired at Ben and Rey, pinning them against the doors. Ben sent a wave through the Force, knocking the assailants back. He ran toward the nearest ship, a compact TIE fighter already primed for flight. Rey scrambled into the cockpit behind him. There was only one seat so she clung on to him as Ben pulled back on the yoke, bringing the ship upwards. He shoved the palm of his hand against the forward accelerator, and the TIE shot out of the First Order tanker.

They were in the middle of unknown space, and Ben knew that First Order supports were on their way to assist the stranded tanker. He would need to get as far away from that ship as possible. With one hand still on the yoke, he searched the TIE’s navigational system for their current location. They were close enough to make a single jump back to Onderon, but the TIE’s shields would take critical damage in the process; they weren’t meant for that kind of travel.

“Hang on to something,” Ben warned Rey, typing in Onderon’s coordinates. The ship’s navigation began a thirty second count down. Through the cockpit’s window, out of the corner of his eye, Ben could see First Order ships arriving from hyperspace. Transports were flying toward the disabled tanker, and it wouldn’t be long before fighters were dispatched, too. Ben glanced back at the computer… fifteen seconds left…

“Come on, come on…”

His shields beeped at him, alerting Ben that someone had locked their targets onto him. He considered attempting to outrun them, but he would burn up fuel evading that many fighters… there wouldn’t be enough to make the jump…

“They’re coming!” Rey shouted, pointing.

Five… four…

Ben saw a dozen TIEs erupt from the First Order’s position, closing the distance so that Ben and Rey were within firing distance. He glanced at the computer again, ready to abandon the jump in favor of his second plan, when the countdown completed. The TIE lurched sharply, disappearing into the safety of hyperspace.

 

* * *

 

The trip to Onderon was only minutes. Ben soared over Iziz recklessly, weaving between other ships and towering skyscrapers. Rey was sitting on the floor next to him, clinging on to the tiny TIE’s walls for support. She had followed Ben out of the clutches of the First Order, but a tiny part of her was acutely aware that she wasn’t out of danger, yet…

The TIE dragged along the surface street in a hasty crash landing, leaving a huge trail of sparks and smoke in its wake. Ben pushed open the cockpit’s exit, yelling at Rey to follow.

It was a rainy morning in Iziz, but the streets were packed. The neighborhood inhabitants had flooded outside, squeezing between one another to get a better look at the scene of chaos left behind by the First Order assault the night before. The street was barricaded by police and local military, lights flashing brightly through the torrential downpour. Ben ran toward it at first, but then veered sharply into an alleyway. His TIE was still there, hidden by darkness. A few kids were hovering around it, unable to get too close. Ben yelled something at them and they scurried off.

It was when Ben was yelling at her that Rey realized she had come to a stop in the alleyway. She stared at his ship, confident that this, too, belonged to the First Order. Her eyes swept over its hull and stately wingspan until Ben was suddenly in front of her, dark eyes wide with terror. His wet hair was clinging to his face, which was suddenly unfamiliar to Rey. When she looked at him, all she could see was the monster who tore apart a ship with his mind.

“We have to go!”

He reached for her, but Rey yanked her hand away. “Stay the hell away from me!” She snarled, summoning up every ounce of hatred she could muster. She could see on his face that it stung.

Good.

“Rey, please—come with me—it’s not safe—“

“And it’s safe with _you_?”

“I can explain—“ He was pleading now, his face split into a look of abject misery. His mask, all his pretenses, were gone.

But Rey was beyond understanding. Aayla’s words were echoing in her head.

“I don’t care about your explanations,” she seethed. She recoiled with every step he took closer. The rain was hot and tropical, but she shivered in her skin. “You lied to me—you used me—“

“No,” he insisted, shaking his head. He closed the gap between them and Rey was pressed up against the alley wall.

“Is it true?” She demanded. For a split second she was willing to consider that it was all a misunderstanding, a twisted game designed to separate them. She dropped her voice, her breath catching in her throat. “Are you Kylo Ren?”

He shut his eyes, bowing his head shamefully. He was struggling to speak, struggling between just answering her question and running. Then, from behind his curtain of dark hair, he whispered, “Yes.”

Rey could feel nausea rising in her chest, constricting her throat. She pushed against his chest. “Get away from me—“

“Please—“

“You’re a monster!”

He actually took a step back at that, wounded. Rey took the opportunity to slide away from him, determined to keep space between them. She could feel tears welling in her eyes as she clenched shaking hands into fists. Her legs were weak beneath her, but she would run if need be. She shook her head, refusing to be swayed by the look on Ben’s face— _Kylo Ren’s_ face—and took a few more steps sideways, away from him. “You’re a monster…” she repeated even as her jaw trembled.

She could see his chest rising and falling as his heart beat wildly underneath. “Please,” he said, and Rey realized he was begging. “Please listen to me… it’s not what you think…it wasn’t my choice—“

Rey shook her head again, angry tears trailing down her cheeks and disappearing in the rain. “No more lies,” she whispered.

“I’m not lying—I swear I’m not—I’ll tell you anything you want—just _please_ come with me. It isn’t safe here! They’ll be back any moment—they’ll take you away!”

Rey blinked through the tears, a steely resolve settling in her chest. She considered Ben before her, all white flags and desperate pleas… She looked over her shoulder toward the street, which was filling up with more on-lookers, desperate to get a sight of the destruction down the road… The First Order would doubtlessly return, and Rey knew they would be looking for her, too…

Ben was right. It wasn’t safe.

But she couldn’t decide if it was safe with him, either.

Her eyes found his, and she wondered how he was able to read minds. She tried to imagine herself pushing forward into his, searching through his memories for the truth… would he try to resist her?

Ben must have sensed her thoughts. “I’ll let you in,” he promised. “You can look at anything you want—I won’t hide it.”

Rey sucked in a breath, resigned. Perhaps he was telling the truth. Perhaps Ben and Kylo Ren really were the same person, and Kylo Ren was some nightmare created by the First Order and Ben was forced to endure until he fled, just like Finn…

Rey’s heart sank at the thought of Finn.

_Come with me._

She dearly wished she had. But it was too late for that. For better or worse, she was stuck with Ben, and she would have to find her way from here…

“Fine,” she said, her voice coming down like a hammer.

Relief washed over Ben’s face, and he looked like he might crumple under the weight of it. He guided Rey toward the cockpit of his personal TIE, helping her up before securing himself back into the pilot’s seat. He brought the ship high over Iziz, ignoring the stares of the hundred people below… the ship gained altitude quickly, and they were soon back in the dark expanse of space, Onderon far below…

“I’m taking us to Ambria,” Ben said without Rey having to ask. He typed in the coordinates with shaking hands, his fingers drumming against the command panel impatiently as the ship prepared for the hyperspace jump.

Rey sank into her usual jump seat, her heart beating a wild staccato against her chest. There had been nothing for her in Jakku, but she found herself almost wishing she was back.

 


	10. Monster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> En route to Ambria, Ben tells Rey the truth.

The whispering was Ben’s earliest memory of him, coming to him in the moments he was alone. In time, Snoke had become as much a part of Ben as anything else, and it was impossible to imagine his life differently. Even in Ben’s darkest moments, rejected by his frightened parents, Snoke had been there, the one person who kept Ben from being entirely alone.

He had been a constant source of guidance, nudging Ben into the right direction and offering insight into other people’s motivations.

 _She’s lying,_ Snoke would say each time Leia assured Ben everything was fine, that Han would be back any day. But then those days stretched into weeks and even months. _He’s avoiding you,_ came Snoke’s knowing voice.

While Snoke had been patient with him in childhood, Ben was now an adult. That gentle understanding was long gone, replaced by cold disappointment.

“You’re failing.”

Ben didn’t dare to look up from his position, kneeling against the polished black floor of the Throne Room. He felt a surge of annoyance spark through him at the accusation—had Snoke forgotten everything he achieved? Luke’s academy was destroyed, and it was only a matter of time before the Jedi Master was tracked down and eliminated. There would be nothing to stand in their way, but Snoke was growing more impatient, and he was blaming Ben.

“I just need more time—“

With a casual flick of his fingers, Snoke sent a bolt of electricity toward the younger man. Ben was thrown backwards, a thousand burning knives digging into his skin and carving him to the bone. He knew better than to scream, and kept his jaw clamped shut while he waited for the pain to subside. Ben lay on his back, momentarily dazed as spots erupted across his vision, blinding him. He rolled to his side, angrily pushing himself up. The Praetorian Guard took a defensive stance, withdrawing their weapons in a palpable threat. They had worked against him in the past, torturing Ben for each mistake he made while he cried out at the Supreme Leader’s feet. Ben glared at them before his gaze found that of his Master’s.

“You are wasting the time I’ve given you,” Snoke hissed from his throne. The black jeweled ring he wore glinted in the low light as he flexed his fingers. “Skywalker lives. And every moment he does is another moment we lose ground. Your mother,” he spat. “has already formed a rebel alliance against us. It is only a matter of time before the New Republic is persuaded to act against us as well… You were so promising when I found you… perhaps I was wrong. You’re no Vader… you’re just a child… another failed experiment in Hux’s long line of prodigies.”

“No,” Ben insisted, fear and anger twisting together inside him as the accusation took hold in his chest.

Snoke regarded him for a moment, blue eyes searching past the surface. He seemed satisfied by what he found there, because then he said, “I’m sending you to Pillio. An old friend of Skywalker’s has been found, and we believe he knows where the map has gone.”

Snoke didn’t have to elaborate; Ben already knew what was expected of him.

“Don’t let your compassion rule you again,” Snoke warned. “Or I will rip it out of you myself.”

It was the last mission Ben performed before the end. While preparations were made for a new operation in Bayora, Snoke arranged for something far worse for Ben. The ultimate test, Snoke had called it. And even as doubt and fear flooded Ben’s veins, he knew what he had to do. Snoke promised to be with him each step of way, providing instruction, but when Ben’s fiery red blade pierced his father’s chest, there was nothing. As horror swept over him and he pleaded for guidance that never came, Ben realized he had gone too far. The bond with the Supreme Leader was severed, leaving only the cold and cruel weight of realization.

For the first time in his life, Ben Solo was truly alone.

 

* * *

 

_You’re a monster._

Rey’s accusation echoed in Ben’s mind as if on an infinite loop. He could feel a hole opening up inside his chest, threatening to swallow him whole. It was his parents frightened whispers in the dark, finally deciding to send him away… and it was Luke, standing over him while he slept, ready to kill him… worse yet, it was his father, dying by his own hand… Ben didn’t know if he could take any more. If it weren’t for Rey being on board, he might just nose-dive the ship deep into Lake Natth and finally end his struggle.

Rey had been quiet, even after the ship jumped to hyperspace. She sat in her usual jump seat, glaring at the other one in front of her. Ben knew the moment to explain himself was now, but he didn’t know where to begin. In spite of his promise to do so, he was terrified of telling her the truth. Rey already thought he was a monster; he would just be confirming it for her.

Ben dug around in the cabinets under the console for his first aid kit. He pulled out a single-use icepack, breaking the contents and shaking it to ignite the chemical reaction. He held it out to Rey, who took it with tentative fingers before pressing it against her bruised temple.

“There’s bacta as well,” Ben told her, gesturing to the kit. “If you want any.”

She didn’t answer.

Unable to stall any longer, he turned in the pilot’s chair to face her.

She glanced up at him, her face stony. Unable or unwilling to look at him, she returned her gaze to the seat in front of her. “Who are they?”

It was clear to whom Rey was referring.

“Her name is Aayla, and his is Darin,” Ben said after a beat. “They’re trained Dark side users…Dark Jedi.” He hesitated, then added, “Like me, they were brought to the First Order because of their powers, and they were trained to be elite fighters. There was a group of us: we were codenamed the Knights of Ren. Part of these experiments on the First Order’s top science vessel, the _Finalizer._ ”

“You were an experiment?” Rey asked.

An invisible knife plunged into his heart and twisted. It burned with shame. “Yes.”

A crease formed between her brows, but she didn’t speak. Ben took the cue to continue.

“I was eighteen when I was brought there… Hux—he’s the science officer behind it all—trained us personally. He was obsessed with clone technology and the Force… he was sure he could make an army of super soldiers, but…” He shook his head. “Nearly all of them died. It was my group that was the first real success… They used Force relics, torture, drugs—all kinds of things to build on our powers and make us stronger, make us these…monsters.” The memory of a sterile lab flashed into Ben’s mind, and he forced it away. “The stronger we got, the less control we had—between Snoke and the power of the Dark side, we were almost shells… a husk around our former selves. When we were strong enough, we answered to Snoke directly, carrying out paramilitary objectives, doing whatever he wanted without a second thought. It was almost ten years before I got away.”

“How did you leave?”

“I destroyed the lab and fought my way off the _Finalizer_ —“

“No, I mean how did you break away? If it was mind control?”

_He’s using you for your power._

Ben fought against the panic rising in his chest. His hands were trembling, and his voice was lost somewhere in his chest. He almost wished Rey would look in his head; it was worse somehow to admit his sins aloud.

_When he gets what he wants, he’ll crush you._

Ben stared at the wall, unable to look at Rey as he told the story. “I struggled—we all did. Usually Hux could whip it out of us, but Snoke was losing his patience, particularly with me… He decided there was still too much Light in me—despite everything I’d done, it was lingering… so they decided to crush it.” He squared his jaw, trying to maintain his composure even as his whole body began to disappear into the hole in his chest. “And…they told me I had to kill someone… I would have to seek him out on my own and kill him, and they promised me that would kill the Light…A sort of sacrifice…” He cleared his throat roughly, even as emotion began to spill out of him.

“So I did it,” he continued after he was sure his voice wouldn’t break. “I tracked down my father, and I killed him.”

A dark, twisted part of him wanted to know if Rey was horrified by this revelation. He wanted to seek out her feelings and thoughts, enveloping himself in her hate and disgust. He wanted to be punished for what he had done. No amount of torture would ever be enough, but Rey’s revulsion would scratch the itch…

But his own memory was suffocating and oppressive, blocking out any signals from Rey. He was full of his own self-hatred and abhorrence, destined to drown in it forever but never feel the release of death…

“He still forgave me, even when he realized what was happening…” Ben added quietly. “I don’t know if they lied, or if they were mistaken… but it didn’t work… it split me in two, and the Light was stronger than ever… strong enough to break the First Order’s control over me…” He swallowed, a bitter edge in his voice. “They stole from me, and corrupted me, turned me into this monster… and I let them. Now I have to live with what I’ve done.”

He could feel Rey watching him, and he dropped his gaze to meet hers. He wanted her to lash out, to hate him as much as he hated himself.

Her face was slack, almost careworn. Her eyes were puffy but too tired to cry, and her brows were knit together in a frown. “They want you back,” she guessed.

Ben nodded. “Yes.”

“But you’ve been running. This whole time.”

Ben shrugged in response. There was another long silence.

“Do you think it would work?” She finally asked. “If they caught you, and made you… Kylo Ren again.”

It was the nightmare that had haunted Ben’s dreams since his escape. “I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “I’d rather be dead.”

Rey adjusted her weight in the seat, still deep in thought. “So then why do you have Force relics? Aayla said you were using them on yourself.”

“To destroy them,” Ben said, repeating his original explanation. It was absurd to him that it was only two days ago that they had discussed them—it felt like a hundred lifetimes had passed, each more nightmarish than the last. “To put a dent in Hux’s Oracle program and keep him from creating more of us.”

There was another long silence as Rey mulled it over. Ben dared to reach out to her in the Force, but she had erected an invisible wall around herself, keeping him out.

“If you want to look through my memories…”

Rey didn’t look at him. She shook her head. Perhaps the idea horrified her.

“I’m sorry,” Ben told her, which finally attracted her gaze, stony and unreadable. “For dragging you into this… I should never have hired you… I put you in danger, and it’s my fault.”

That twisted part of himself hoped she would agree, but perhaps this was the better punishment, to be denied the destruction he so desperately craved…

 

* * *

 

There was a headache forming behind Hux’s eyes. He was working at it with his fingertips as Aayla spoke through the hologram.

“…destroyed the ship and killed almost everyone on board…”

“Who is this girl?” Hux demanded to know. “The one he was with?”

“Some Force user he found,” Aayla replied. Even through the holo-call, Hux could hear the disdain in her voice. “She’s the one from Jakku. She’s strong—I could feel her power. He might try to train her if he hasn’t already started.”

Hux sighed. He had been elated when Aayla sent him the good news: Kylo Ren was found and captured on Onderon, in some Iziz ghetto, and brought into First Order custody. The Ysalamiri serum had been highly effective at containing Kylo, opening dozens of doors for future use and synthesized hybrids… Hux finally fixed the Supreme Leader’s grave error, and was well on track to fix the whole situation once and for all…

But the Ysalamiri serum had worn off as quickly as it took effect. Kylo Ren escaped from his bonds, destroyed the First Order transport, and escaped in a stolen TIE fighter with some Jakku girl… Aayla herself had barely escaped before Kylo could get to her…

The only positive in this entire disastrous situation was that Supreme Leader Snoke hadn’t yet been told that Kylo was recovered…

“Any thought where they might have gone?”

Aayla sighed. “Our scanners suggest they returned to Onderon—but we did a sweep of the planet and haven’t found either of them, just a crashed TIE fighter.”

Hux clenched his fists, resisting the urge to lash out and break something. “What about the other Knights?” he asked through clenched teeth. “Have you heard from them?”

“Not since their confirmation of my original report—but I’ve sent out updates and they’ll be looking. They know Kylo’s been searching for relics, so they’ve got intelligence stationed at all the possible sites… he’ll turn up again, Commander, I know it. We’ve already caught him once—we know now that the key is keeping him contained.”

Hux thought back to the Ysalamiri serum. He would have to find a way to increase the half-life… or hook up Kylo to a continuous drip, perhaps keeping him unconscious in the process… he wished that Aayla and Darin had at least kept custody of the girl from Jakku. Hux would dearly have liked to test a few of his serums on her as punishment for her meddling.

He was furious, but there was no point berating Aayla and Darin further… it was merely a waste of time. Besides that, they knew what fate awaited them if they failed.

“Let me know when you hear from the others.”

“Yes, Commander.”

Hux turned off his holo-projector, letting out a long breath through his nose.

Snoke was still breathing down his neck, demanding to know when Kylo would be found. He threatened to dispatch the Stormtrooper Corps to find him if Hux’s paramilitary forces proved unsuccessful. It would all be a waste of resources, Hux knew. If the Knights of Ren couldn’t find Kylo, then an entire unit of Stormtroopers weren’t going to fare any better. Snoke was growing impatient, but it was his impatience that had set off this chain of events… if he hadn’t forced Kylo to kill his father before he was ready, none of this would have happened—

There was a knock on his door, and Hux looked up. Standing there was Lieutenant Pell, wild-eyed and pale. He looked like he might be ill. Hux watched as Pell entered his office, saluting sharply before launching into his request. “Commander Hux—I’ve brought Second Lieutenant Mitaka. He acquired some sort of _nasty_ condition on the surface of Jakku—“

“So take him to medical,” Hux snapped, turning to his holopad. “I’m a scientist, not a doctor.”

“I did, sir, and they suggested I bring him to you.”

Hux looked up, silent and glowering. He was aware most of First Order command was frightened of him, and it had never occurred to Hux to change their minds.

Pell adjusted his weight nervously on his feet. “I considered bringing him to the _Supremacy’s_ medical board, but I thought you might want to see him first—“ He gestured to Hux’s still-open office door, and Second Lieutenant Mitaka entered.

His skin was covered in dark greenish bruises, his veins purple and bulging underneath the surface. The capillaries on his face had blown, flecking it with hundreds of tiny red marks. His eyes were glazed and his face covered in a sheen of sweat. Hux got to his feet, walking around his desk. He stopped a foot away from Mitaka, examining him like a particularly interesting lab result.

“This happened on Jakku?” Hux asked, curious in spite of himself.

“In an area the locals call the Plaintive Hand Plateau, sir,” Pell informed him. “My unit expanded the search for Lor San Tekka based on tips from Niima Outpost… and it’s not just him, sir, the entire Stormtrooper unit is affected. We’ve had four casualties in the last twelve hours.”

Hux looked at Pell sharply. “Does anyone else know?”

“We’ve contained it for now, sir,” Pell said nervously. “I wanted expert opinion before I put in the paperwork—we’re under quarantine measures right now—no one has left the Plaintive Hand, in or out.”

“And Captain Phasma?”

Pell hesitated for a split second. “She is with the rest of the unit, still in Niima.”

 _Good,_ Hux thought. Phasma was far too valuable to him to get caught up in this outbreak, whatever it was.

Hux pulled a pair of examination gloves from his pocket, donning the protection before he reached for Mitaka’s green face, pulling up his eyelids and examining the pupils. “Very well,” was all he said. He withdrew his hands, removing the gloves with a snap and tossing them into the bin before speaking again. “You were wise not to raise the alert, Lieutenant.”

“Sir?”

“Obtain samples from every affected trooper on Jakku—blood, saliva, and hair. Send them straight to me. And the cadavers, too.”

“And Mitaka, sir?”

Hux had moved back around to his desk. He looked at the Second Lieutenant in question, who appeared feverish and barely conscious. “Leave him. I’ll look over him, myself.”

“Very well, sir.” Pell stood at attention and saluted Hux once more before exiting the office. He cast one last nervous glance toward his Second Lieutenant before disappearing.

As if on cue, Mitaka suddenly retched, spilling black bile all over Hux’s floor. He sputtered, clutching his chest, bubbles frothing around his mouth.

Hux stared at it for a moment before slowly leaning toward his holo-projector, pressing the button for his secretary.

“Kelen, send for a cleaning droid. My office.”

“Right away, sir.”

 

* * *

 

They didn’t speak again until they were on Ambria, trudging through low alpine meadow toward Lake Natth.

His story had been horrifying, and Rey didn’t deny she felt the instinct to run. But as Ben spoke, trying and failing to keep his composure, Rey couldn’t help but feel a tinge of sympathy for him, monster or not. He expected her to be terrified, Rey knew, but it was undeniable that he was more afraid of himself than she ever had been of him. He looked vulnerable as he spoke, carefully looking anywhere but at her, accepting and expecting her violent reaction and being confused when she didn’t give it to him.

Maybe he was a monster. Maybe he was a Dark creature, dangerous and violent, just as Aayla had said. But if that were true, then that same monster had saved Rey’s life, had stayed behind on Iziz just to comfort a stupid, heartbroken girl even though it meant putting himself at risk…

So when he tried to draw affirmation from her, Rey found she couldn’t give it. All of the fear and anger she had felt in Iziz had burned away, leaving nothing but a tired ache in Rey’s bones.

The destruction of the relic had been anticlimactic. Ben and Rey approached the lake shore, which was cold and bog-like. Low fog rolled down from the surrounding mountains, filling the valley with a mist that seemed to soak straight through Rey’s clothes. Ben led the way to a rocky outcropping that dropped suddenly to the frozen waters below. Wordlessly he removed the relic from his pack and threw it as far as he could. They watched the stone soar high in the air before splashing.

Rey almost wondered if this was a joke; if this was all it took, they could have tossed the stone into the lake at Takodana, or even the Sinking Sands in Jakku. But Rey figured Ben knew something about this lake that she didn’t, something that justified the long journey to this particular place.

“Ambria used to be a Sith refuge, a long time ago,” Ben told her, staring out over the lake. He was reading her thoughts again. “The planet was corrupted and used as a war machine—all the life on its surface died. Centuries later, the Jedi Master Thon moved here, attracted by the Darkness. He drove all the Dark energy away and into this lake, trapping it forever. His power was so great that any Dark force or energy that enters this lake cannot leave it.” He glanced at her before turning back toward the lake. “I thought it would be a good place to dump relics.”

Rey silently agreed with him. “Maybe we should throw Snoke in here, too.”

He didn’t smile, but Rey felt Ben’s heart lift a tiny bit at that.

“You’d need room for the entire _Supremacy_ ,” Ben said. “He never leaves that ship, and I don’t think this lake is big enough.”

Rey adjusted her weight on her feet, looking out at the lake around them. It was beautiful, even if the weather was rather poor for hiking. The mountains were sharp and green, snow-capped at their peaks. Rey could sense dozens of rivers carving down the mountainside, glacial ice melting into the lake before them. The valley was also a wash of green, dotted with trees, and Rey imagined it exploding with color in the early summer.

“So what was your plan?” Rey finally asked, ready to learn more about Ben. The other information—the horrifying origin story of Kylo Ren—still weighed on her heavily but she tucked it away, content to re-examine it later. “After leaving the First Order.”

Ben picked up a rock, a smooth pebble no bigger than the relic, and tossed it across the lake. It bounced on the surface, sending waves of ripples back toward the shore, before finally sinking.

“I guess to find as many relics as I could and toss them,” he finally said. “At least until I was killed trying.”

“What about your family?” Rey asked. She remembered what Ben had said about his father, but he’d once mentioned a mother. Perhaps there were even grandparents or siblings… “Did you ever think about finding them?”

A stony expression took over his face as he examined another pebble. “They don’t want me. They never wanted me. That’s why they gave me away.”

“To the First Order?” Rey guessed. She felt that pang of sympathy creep back through her by the revelation. Ben hadn’t been wanted, either…

“No, to Luke.”

Rey paused, the gears in her mind grinding. “Luke Skywalker? _He_ was your teacher?”

“He was. A long time ago.”

“You said you’d never met him.”

Ben shrugged.

Rey tried to put the pieces of the puzzle together. The transition from Luke Skywalker to the First Order didn’t make any sense. “What happened?”

He looked reluctant to tell her, but a promise was a promise. Rey made herself comfortable on the ground while Ben continued his mindless work of skipping rocks. It seemed to give him something to do, something with which to keep his hands busy while he laid his broken soul bare to Rey a second time.

“Skywalker was considering starting a Jedi training academy,” Ben began. “He’d spent the last ten years traveling the galaxy, learning what he could about the Force, about the Jedi and the Sith… I don’t think he was ready for it, but my mother begged him to take me. She and my father sensed a darkness in me, and they didn’t know how to deal with it. I was twelve.”

So Ben had been with his parents long enough to have strong memories of them. She wondered if that made it worse when he was finally given away.

“I was his only student at first. I hated it—I didn’t want to be a Jedi, I didn’t want to be away from my parents even though they obviously wanted to get away from me… but I got used to it. I was strong, and for a little while it almost felt like it was working.” He glanced at Rey, saw the questioning look there, then added, “The Darkness. It was fading away.”

He tossed another pebble, this one bouncing seven times—Rey was counting—before sinking.

“I was probably thirteen or fourteen when he took about a dozen other students and started a proper training Academy. His goal was to rebuild the Jedi order.” He sighed, hesitating. He was staring down at his hands, at a tiny pebble he turned over and over between his fingers. “Meanwhile, Snoke had been keeping tabs on me, probably my whole life. I think he wanted to see which direction I’d go… so he—it’s hard to explain,” he said, hesitating. “It was like he was in my head, watching me. Whispering things. It got stronger as I got older, and especially got worse when I was sent to Luke.” He shook his head. “I realize now the intent was to allow Luke to train me, but to turn me toward the Darkness when I was older. That’s when I was brought to the First Order.”

“Did Luke try to stop it?” Rey asked.

A dark expression washed over Ben’s face. “No,” he said coolly. “No, he tried to kill me.”

“ _What_?”

“He sensed my power, and he was afraid of it. I suppose he didn’t believe he could defeat me, because he came into my room when I was asleep.” He sunk his hands deep into his pockets, glaring out across the lake. “Darth Vader could be saved, though. But not me.”

Rey was staring at him, struggling to comprehend. She could understand the Dark streak, the fear, and even the indifference of parents, but _Luke Skywalker_ had turned against him? Ben? Even as Rey thought about the stories of Kylo Ren, it still seemed disproportionate… Darth Vader had spent a lifetime terrorizing the galaxy…

“Something in me snapped that night,” Ben continued stiffly. “I was sure Luke was dead. And then the other students woke up, and thought I turned on them… so I had to kill them, too. I burned the Academy down and ran with Aayla and Darin—“

“Wait—They were other Jedi students?”

Ben nodded. “That’s how we know each other. Aayla and Darin took my side in the fight. We hid in the forest for days, too afraid to go back. That’s when Snoke sent the First Order to scoop us up. We were with him every day after that.”

Rey thought about the story, struggling to understand how someone like Luke Skywalker had failed, turning on his own student… Kylo Ren didn’t exist yet, so what could he have seen?

“Do you think maybe he got it wrong?” She asked. Ben looked at her. “Luke, I mean. You said he saw a darkness in you, and that’s why he tried to kill you, but what if that darkness had actually been Snoke, and he just mixed it up? You said Snoke was already in your head… Maybe that’s what your parents saw, too…”

He studied her for a moment, a sullen expression on his face. “That’s an incredibly generous interpretation.”

Rey’s face fell into a frown. “How?”

He opened his arms, gesturing at the empty space around them. “Have you not listened to a single thing I’ve told you?”

“I have,” Rey answered, annoyed.

He scoffed, turning away from her in disbelief. “You can’t be serious,” he mumbled.

Rey got to her feet. “I _am_ serious,” she insisted. “Are you telling me you _wanted_ to become Kylo Ren?”

“It doesn’t matter—“

“Why?”

He shook his head, refusing to answer.

Irritation had bubbled back to the surface of Rey’s chest. “Well, it matters to me—and I don’t think Luke was right—“

“You don’t even know him—“

“I don’t have to—he was still wrong.”

Ben was staring at her with a frown, but this one was different. It was almost fearful, as though he was certain Rey had lost her mind.

But Rey wasn’t going to back down. “Is this why you didn’t tell me the truth? Because you thought I’d be scared of you?”

A skeptical look crossed his face. “And would you have agreed to fix Kylo Ren’s ship?”

Rey smacked him, her fist colliding with his shoulder. He had the good manners to wince. “Stop saying that—you are _not_ Kylo Ren—you destroyed him when you—“

“Killed my father?” He tested.

Rey glared at him, but she didn’t dare argue that point. She could tell by the look on his face that it was far too painful. “Maybe,” she finally said.

He looked away from her, glaring out across the lake once more.

“So what’s the plan?” Rey asked, attempting a tone of diplomatic neutrality.

He didn’t answer.

“Find more relics?” Rey guessed. “Risk your life again?”

“Do you have a better suggestion?”

“I do.”

Ben actually turned around to look at her, curious in spite of his anger.

It was a gamble—a huge one, and Ben probably wouldn’t react well. But Rey had been thinking about it during the long hike here… Ben wanted to destroy the Oracle program, but eliminating relics was dangerous and time-consuming… and it did nothing to stop people like Aayla, who were a threat right now… They would need help. They needed someone who had opposed the First Order, who had ships and weapons and the manpower to carry out a real mission…

“The Resistance.”

Ben raised his eyebrows. “You can’t be serious…”

Rey bristled, but her voice was confident. “I am.”

He pretended to consider it a moment. “They have no funding. No real diplomatic standing. No resources to fight a military like the First Order, despite their foolish guerrilla efforts—”

“Which is why,” Rey continued, speaking slowly as though it would cushion the blow. Ben’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “They’re gonna need some extra help. The same kind of help the rebels had against the Empire.”

Ben stared at her, his face a blank slate. When he spoke, it was with utmost conviction. “ _Kriff_ no.”

“You don’t have to talk to him—we just have to find him—“

“Yeah, and good luck with that. No one knows where he is.”

“Lor San Tekka,” Rey insisted.

Ben shook his head, dismissive. “He’s missing, too.”

“He’s on Jakku,” Rey insisted. “I know it—Finn said the Tuanul villagers said he’d been missing for weeks, but he was heading for Old Meru’s just before you showed up.”

“Did you actually see him?”

“Well, no—“

“So it’s a rumor.”

Rey threw her hands up. “What else are we going to do? Aayla knows what you’re trying to do—she knows about the relics. They almost caught you twice now, I don’t think you’ll be so lucky a third time. This might not work, but isn’t it worth trying? To destroy that horrible program once and for all?”

Ben turned on his heel, walking away.

Rey, affronted, stared after him. “Where are you going?” She demanded.

“I can’t talk about this right now.”

Rey scoffed, hesitating by the lakeside. There was no point lingering here, so she followed him. “You promised!”

“I didn’t promise to join the Resistance!”

“Well—why not?”

He came to a sudden halt, and Rey almost smacked right into him. He whirled around to look down at her. “Because my mother runs it.”

“Oh…” the response was automatic, escaping from Rey’s lips before she could think of a real answer to that. Suddenly his reluctance made a lot more sense…

But the point still stood. The Resistance was their best bet, and if Rey could find Luke Skywalker to help them…

Rey marched across the damp grass to catch up with Ben. He was stubborn, but so was Rey—and she had spent most of her lifetime on Jakku learning two things: how to wait, and how to fix broken things.

 

 

 


	11. The Lesson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux meets an old mentor and learns about what might lay under the Observatory on Jakku.

Rey caught up to Ben’s long strides, stamping her feet into the ground while her arms swung sharply at her sides.

“Don’t walk away from me!” She shouted at Ben’s back.

“If you want to be a Resistance fighter, I’d be happy to drop you off with Maz Kanata,” Ben spat, barely glancing over his shoulder. “But I’m not going back.”

Rey ran the last few strides through the slick grass, reaching for Ben’s arm and yanking him around to face her.

“Why?”

His dark eyes were bright, full of barely-concealed anger and a readiness to fight. He glared down at Rey, but she held her position stubbornly. She wasn’t afraid of him, not anymore.

She took a steadying breath before beginning, “It’s okay if you’re afraid—“

He scoffed, turning away. But he didn’t deny it.

“Do you just want revenge?” Rey demanded. She was quickly losing what patience she had. “Is that it?”

“Yes,” Ben replied, his tone suggesting that this was the most obvious thing in the galaxy. He caught sight of Rey’s expression and his own face soured. “What?”

Rey shook her head, angry tears welling in her eyes. “That’s such a waste—“

“Well—it happens,” he spat.

“How can you think that? How can you think it doesn’t matter that you’re still alive, and—“

“What do you want from me?” He interrupted. The anger had given way to sheer exhaustion, and as he stood in the misty fields surrounding Lake Natth, Ben looked like he might cry.

Rey sighed, taking a moment to gather her thoughts before she spoke. Her body was exhausted, begging for sleep, but her mind was on fire, afraid of unseen terrors lurking over her shoulder. “All I ever wanted was for my family to come back for me—for anyone to come back,” Rey told him. She wiped at the tears already drying on her cheeks before fixing Ben with a long stare. “But the galaxy sent you… and I don’t believe it was for nothing… If the First Order is as powerful and dangerous as you say, then we have to fight.”

He looked away.

Rey hesitated before continuing. “Something inside me has always been there… but now it’s awake. And that day on Jakku, in the Plaintive Hand, you told me I didn’t have to be afraid… but I am. I don’t understand it, I don’t understand my place in all this… Maybe I am just a scavenger—a nobody—but if I got a chance at a different life, then I want to be something more—more than what they made me…. And I want you to come with me.”

Ben’s face softened, all anger and fear wiped away. A muscle twitched near his jaw as he considered Rey’s appeal. Even as he remained silent, Rey knew she had won him over. It wasn’t revenge or destruction that he wanted; it was belonging. A rebirth where he could start over, free from his bonds within the First Order and even his family.

A clap of thunder rolled overhead, echoing for miles. Rey jumped, her eyes darting skyward.

“We should get inside the ship,” Ben told her wearily. “Before the rain starts.”

 

* * *

 

Ambria was frequently plagued by violent electrical storms, so Ben and Rey were forced to spend the night in the TIE Silencer, nestled out of sight in the forest near Lake Natth.

They took turns in the tiny sonic ‘fresher, dressing each other’s wounds from their encounter with the First Order. Rey had a few scrapes and knot on her temple, but Ben had taken the worst of the assault. He sat stiff as durasteel under Rey’s hand, barely allowing himself to wince as Rey cleaned his wounds. It was incredibly invasive to be this close to him, and Rey struggled to focus. Her fingers were so tentative that Ben eventually wriggled away.

“Your touch is so soft—it tickles,” he explained, completely unperturbed that he was sitting shirtless beside Rey, who had never been this close to a half-naked anybody before.

“Sorry,” Rey said, cheeks reddening. She gestured to the burn she had been cleaning. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You could never hurt me.”

Her face burned, and Rey had to fight to keep her hands steady.

They resumed their former positions, and Rey sucked in a breath, trying not to stare at his arms and think too much about the way those same arms had held her. He was the same Ben Rey had known before, but now there was something different, as though the last day had given Rey new eyes.

When she moved to the abrasion on his dominant arm, her eyes kept finding the scar that led the way to his collar, his jaw, and eventually his brown eyes… She knew Ben caught her looking; they kept making split-second eye contact. In an effort to sound casual, Rey asked, “Can I ask you something?”

The thought was burning at the forefront of her mind, and she had no doubt that the words were echoing in the space all around Ben. She found his gaze, and his soft expression seemed permission enough to ask.

Rey paused in her work, bacta in one hand and a gauze pad in the other. She sat up a little straighter. “That scar,” she began, nodding toward it. “Where did you get it?”

“Aayla gave it to me,” he told her. “When I escaped—she was trying to stop me, and nearly took my head off with her lightsaber—not literally,” he added quickly, for Rey’s eyes had widened in horror and she clamped a hand over her mouth. “It was really more of a scratch, but lightsabers aren’t forgiving weapons.”

Rey reached out a hesitant hand toward his shoulder. She expected Ben to move or stop her, but he waited, watching her. Rey’s fingertips grazed over the peaks of the scar hesitantly before settling on its surface. It was warm and smooth like the rest of Ben’s skin, but full of knotted ropes and taut grooves. It almost felt like two pieces sewn together, an embroidered path that led over the hills and valleys of his shoulder. Rey’s finger traced the scar over his collar, reaching the dip in his throat before she realized what she had been doing. She snatched her hand away, not daring to look at Ben’s face even though she wanted to know if that part of the scar felt the same.

She bandaged his last wound and while she cleaned up their mess, Ben pulled his tunic over his head. Rey watched him rest a palm against the table and push himself up, her eyes tracking him as he moved stiffly toward one of the cabinets. When she wasn’t thinking about invading his personal space, her thoughts kept drifting to Aayla and Darin, and the story Ben had told her earlier that afternoon.

“Were they your friends?” She asked. “Aayla and Darin. Before.”

Ben gave her a sharp look before turning away. He walked back to the table silently, pressing that same palm down on its surface to lower himself into the seat. “They were,” he finally said.

Rey bit her lip, stopping herself from unleashing the hundred or so questions that arose by that answer. Ben hadn’t actually told her what happened to him when they were captured, but Rey—having tended to his wounds—could guess.

“Darin was one of the first students Luke took on after me,” Ben said after several moments, capturing Rey’s attention. “He was quiet—really small. It was my job as the first student to make everyone feel welcome, especially as the numbers increased. Luke never brought anyone who didn’t want to be there, and no one under the age of twelve… Aayla came much later. She was probably the youngest one in our group when… it ended.” He gave a non-committal shrug at his own explanation. “The others would tease her about her heritage, so I would have to break up their fights before they got too bloody. Apparently the trials of a Jedi Knight are babysitting a bunch of misbehaving teenagers.”

Rey thought back to their meeting on the First Order ship. Darin hadn’t given her much of anything to work with. Rey might have even supposed he was just another Stormtrooper out of uniform if it hadn’t been for Ben telling her otherwise. Aayla, however… Rey fought a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as she recalled her encounter. Something about the woman was cold and unfeeling… It was bizarre to think of her as a child, following a younger Ben around and perhaps making rude gestures to the other kids from behind Ben’s back…

“What were you like?” She asked.

“Me?”

Rey nodded.

Ben’s eyes drifted off as he thought. He shook his head. “I don’t know. Quiet, I guess.”

Rey smirked. “I’m surprised.”

That pulled a weak smile out of Ben.

“I was…pretty much the same,” Rey volunteered. “As I am now, I mean.” It was strange to have someone with whom she could share her past, especially the painful parts. But as she spoke to him, even the bad memories didn’t feel as sharp as they often did when she recalled them during so many lonely nights in the desert. “Even before Jakku—I remember beating all the other kids at _tap taqieh—_ that’s this game of marbles we played growing up. I was a faster runner, too, so it was usually my job to follow the fruit cart and collect all the things that fell off… and then later,” she added, not bothering to clarify what “later” meant. “I had to fight for scrapping rights. I used to partner with some of the really old scavengers—I could fit in places the adults couldn’t, so we would usually split whatever I found. When I got older I worked by myself—I learned how ships were built by taking them apart, and I built my own land speeder.”

Ben was watching her with quiet fascination. Rey felt a little ridiculous rambling about her inane exploits in the desert when Ben had lived a far more interesting life by comparison. Her gaze leveled with his, and his face fell slightly when he sensed her thoughts.

“I won’t change my mind,” she told him.

He sighed. “I gathered as much.”

Rey waited for Ben to cave, to give her an answer to her plea from that afternoon.

But Ben just shook his head, dismissive as ever. “We should get some sleep. It’ll be a long day tomorrow.”

Rey wanted to argue, but she knew a fight would just push Ben further away. She was no stranger to waiting, so she would just try again in the morning.

 

* * *

 

It was a fitful night of sleep, full of bad dreams and restless limbs, but Rey hadn’t swayed in her resolve by the time morning came. Ben prepared cups of instant caf, which they drank on top of the TIE Silencer, breathing in the cold morning air. They sat together in silence for a long while, neither acknowledging that there was no clear plan for their next move. Rey was steadfast in her opinion, but Ben was still brooding over his.

“We can go,” he finally said, fingers wrapped around his mug.

Rey had been ready for another argument, so the sudden surrender caught her off guard. “Huh?”

He waved a hand at the open space in front of him. “To the Republic. The Resistance. But don’t get your hopes up.”

It was too late. Rey felt her chest rise with happiness and even a bit of excitement. Her face split into a wide grin, which she tried to school back into a neutral position before Ben could see it.

He shook his head at her, but his admonishment was weak. “Wow, what did I just say?”

She tried to purse her lips. “Sorry—“

Ben gave her a small smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “There’s a few ways to go about it—The New Republic won’t do anything without evidence, so I wouldn’t worry about them. I have no idea where the Resistance base is, but I know some people who might steer us in the right direction. That being said… it won’t be a warm welcoming. I still represent the enemy in their minds…”

Rey could tell there was more, so she waited for Ben to continue.

He ran a hand through his hair, sighing. “The other option is to go to Luke directly. The Resistance has been looking for him for years… but we don’t know where he is.”

“If we find Lor San Tekka, we’ll find Luke,” Rey told him. “I know it.”

“That means going back to Jakku.”

“I know.”

“It’ll be dangerous.”

Rey shrugged. “I can handle myself.”

He smiled wryly at that, taking her empty mug and climbing back into the open cockpit. Rey followed.

Ben had settled himself in front of his computer, programming some application to run scans on Jakku’s atmosphere. “I want to know if the First Order is still there,” he explained to Rey. “This program hijacks data from nearby First Order satellites, encrypts it, then brings it back to us.”

“And if they are there?”

They made eye contact.

“I guess we’ll figure it out,” was Ben’s non-solution.

“Should we contact the Resistance first?” Rey suggested. “Maybe they can help—“

A stony expression passed over Ben’s face. “I think they’ll be less likely to shoot us out of the sky if we come with a peace offering. You forget who I used to be.”

Rey pursed her lips, but didn’t reply. Incredibly, she _had_ forgotten the story Ben told her the previous day. She considered his words, mulling over a hundred new possibilities that suddenly occurred to her. “Will it be safe for you?”

Rey had been expecting some anxiety, but Ben gave an amused snort. “I thought you would do all the talking.”

Rey couldn’t tell if he was being facetious or not. “If it’s a stupid plan—“

Ben turned around to face her. “Have you changed your mind?”

“Well—no—“

“Then don’t worry about it.”

That was easier said than done. Rey turned her attention back to his computer. “How long will that take?”

“A day.”

“A _day_?”

Ben raised a skeptical eyebrow at her. “If the First Order is there, they’ll be on a schedule. We need a full day’s worth of intel to find the safest approach.”

Rey was impatient, but Ben’s plan made sense. He didn’t avoid the First Order for weeks by making reckless trips planet-side.

While the computer ran its processes, Ben busied himself with minor chores: recharging the ship’s solar-powered generator, making minor adjustments and repairs on the ship, and cleaning debris off its sensors. Rey spent the morning walking in wide arcs around the ship, trying to commit their surroundings to memory. She remembered what Ben had told her about being connected to the Force and tried to reach out, but nothing happened. An idea occurred to her, but she wrestled with it for the better part of the morning until Ben fixed her with a long look from behind his ship. Doubtlessly he had sensed her struggle—perhaps heard her thoughts—but was waiting for Rey to make up her mind.

“Will you teach me something?” She finally asked.

He raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”

“A Force thing?”

He chuckled at that, turning his head away a few seconds too late. Rey’s cheeks burned with embarrassment, but she held steadfast.

An exposed compartment banged shut, and Ben emerged from the back of the ship. His face was thoughtful, but the faintest trace of a smile still lingered around his eyes.

“Okay,” he said, wiping his hands on his trousers. “A Force thing…”

Rey bit back a smile, pretending to give him an affronted look and raising her eyebrows at him expectantly.

“Let’s have a seat over there,” Ben suggested, pointing to a grassy meadow several meters away. “It smells like jet fuel back here.”

Rey did as instructed, watching Ben carefully. He hesitated when he spoke, as though second-guessing himself. But his demeanor was easy, relaxed, and Rey was determined to keep up his good mood. She had never seen him like this.

He took a seat in the grass across from her, gesturing Rey should copy his pose. “Now close your eyes,” he instructed.

Rey did as she was told, acutely aware of Ben’s presence just inches from hers. If she lifted her fingertips from her knees, they would brush against Ben’s.

“Now, reach out—not like that—“

A hand suddenly pressed down on Rey’s outstretched arm, making her open her eyes.

“In here,” Ben added, pointing once toward his chest and then to his head.

Rey readjusted her position, feeling incredibly foolish. She had been expecting something more like telekinesis or levitation, but she supposed meditation made sense as a first step. She closed her eyes, this time focusing on the sound of distant birds, of the wind rustling through the branches of the trees… then came the lake and all the sounds that accompanied the animals that lived there. Rey’s senses stretched even thinner, and she could feel the ground moving minutely beneath her as unseen roots and creatures burrowed. Glaciers shifted and cracked in the distance, melted by sunlight that carried the water down the mountains and into the deep, bottomless lake below. Beyond it all, Rey could feel the connection Ben had told her about.

“What do you see?” Ben asked her after several silent moments.

“Light,” Rey replied immediately. And it was true—there was so much light and life on this planet, thousands of layers of it, and Rey wanted to touch it all…

“What else?”

Rey pushed further, allowing this new connection to the Force guide her. She could hear the trees swaying in the wind, the echoing crashes of glaciers cracking and splitting apart. And between them, the lake, cold and dark…

“Something else…”

Rey moved closer to the lake, eyeing its black glassy surface. She reached out a tentative hand, her fingers reaching beyond the rocky outcropping she and Ben had sat upon the day before. She imagined the water to be smooth and cold against her hand, and as her fingertips broke the surface, she was suddenly pulled under.

But instead of the bottom of the lake, Rey saw the sleek walls of an imposing starship. A long window separated Rey from white-clad scientists, all watching with the same cold expression.

“Begin,” a sterile voice announced over some unseen speaker.

Rey stumbled backwards and tripped. Her surroundings shifted, the walls turning to burning huts and screaming villagers. Stormtroopers fired upon the fleeing survivors while a man in a black mask watched on. Rey hurried away, desperate to put distance between herself and this violence, but the masked man was suddenly before her again, driving a lightsaber through an older man’s chest—

Rey was violently pulled from the vision, gasping for air. Her fingers clutched at the dirt, digging into the soil for purchase as though the planet would crumble away beneath her, dropping her into the darkness of the lake once more.

Gradually her surroundings seeped back into her consciousness and Rey remembered where she was. She sat back roughly, her chest still rising and falling rapidly. Rey ran a shaking hand through her hair before she allowed herself to look at Ben again.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I didn’t mean—I don’t know what happened—“

Ben was on his feet, his back turned to her, his hands clutching the back of his neck.

“No,” he finally muttered. He shook his head, still avoiding Rey’s gaze. “It’s my fault—we shouldn’t have done this so close to the lake—“

Rey pushed herself to her feet, unsure of what to say. “What was that?”

He glanced at her, face burning with shame. “My memories,” he finally said, speaking to the ground.

While Rey knew that Ben had performed these unspeakable acts when forced to act as Kylo Ren, it still shook her to see them through his eyes. An irrational fear had sprung up in her chest—the same fear in Onderon—and Rey tried to quash it. She shook her head, trying to clear the visions from her mind. “It wasn’t on purpose—I didn’t mean to invade—“

Ben ran shaking hands over his face, trying to center himself. “It’s fine,” he said, weary. “We’ll just have to be more careful next time.”

“Next time?”

He opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated. “If you want to,” he finally said awkwardly.

“I do,” Rey insisted. Her sincerity was obvious, and it was perhaps this that finally calmed Ben’s nerves.

The lesson was done for the day. Ben busied himself with trivial repair work on the ship, avoiding Rey and allowing a gloomy expression to settle onto his face. Rey didn’t know what else to do with herself, so she walked as far away from Ben and the lake was she was comfortable with and practiced what Ben had told her. Once or twice she caught herself reaching for Ben’s presence in the Force, but their tumultuous first encounter had made him erect walls that were sky-high. So Rey sat in the grass alone, practicing her connection to the Force and trying to commit Ben’s warm laugh and crooked smile to memory. She didn’t know when she would see those things again.

 

* * *

 

Commander Hux traveled to Korrus approximately once a standard solar cycle. The official paperwork explained these visits were purely pleasure trips to visit his old mentor and friend, the former Grand Admiral Rae Sloane, but for Hux they were research. So when he demanded Kellen schedule an immediate flight to Korrus only four months after the last, he was met with surprise and hesitation.

“Do it,” he demanded. “Now. Reschedule anything in the next week—Captain Phasma will be my point of command for the Stormtroopers, but I still want to be in the loop.”

“And the research vessel, sir?”

Hux rolled his eyes. “Galen Lux can address the daily needs until my return.”

Galen Lux was the First Order’s Chief Weapons and Technology Officer, and competed fiercely with Commander Hux for Leader Snoke’s favor. Where her focus was in shields, trackers, and canons, Hux’s was in soldiers. The _Finalizer_ operated under her official command from the _Supremacy_ , but it was clear to the leadership that Hux—despite his slightly lower rank—controlled the _Finalizer_.

“Very well, sir, I will inform leadership immediately,” Kelen replied, already typing away on her data pad. “For how long will you be gone?”

“It shouldn’t be more than twenty-four hours outside of travel.”

“Very well, sir, I will send the flight reports and inform you immediately when your ship is ready.”

Korrus, like most First Order planets, was located in the Outer Rim in the same ring as Belladoon and Zhadalene, bordering the Unknown Regions. The official economy was in mining and agriculture, but there were half a dozen large-scale military bases on its surface, equipped with training academies, flight schools, and a teaching hospital.

The official paperwork had Hux taking a short personal stay in the pleasure cities designed exclusively for officer use, but Hux always flew into the capitol city of Kor-Ma , where the former Grand Admiral of the dying Empire lived.

She was retired five years ago and given the official diagnosis of dementia as the reasoning. It wasn’t true, but it was a kind offer considering all the other old Imperial Officers were either killed off or sent on discovery vessels to the Unknown Regions. Hux held no personal grudge against Sloane; they had been allies in his youth, after all. She was simply in his way, and Hux needed to remove her to advance his Oracle program.

The city of Kor-Ma was the preferred place of retirement for First Order elite, flush with money and the latest technology. Towering skyscrapers served as medical housing for the elderly and infirm while entire neighborhoods were equipped with luxurious row housing. Hux’s ship docked on the military landing pad and a sleek black land speeder took him directly to Sloane’s apartment.

It was a towering structure with a glass facade and vibrant hanging gardens. Hux was led through a side entrance, escorted by First Order military police, and took the lift to the top floor, where the elderly Sloane lived. Her apartment was luxurious and double in size from all the others in her building, staffed by medical droids and her own personal doctor. Her view commanded most of the city skyline and the sea beyond.

It was a very desirable retirement location, but Sloane frequently complained.

She had been forewarned of Hux’s arrival, so she had tea ready on her balcony, where she sat glowering. Hux dismissed his guard, who retreated to the interior of the apartment.

“Grand Admiral,” Hux greeted with cool formality, saluting the elderly woman before taking the seat meant for him.

“Former,” Sloane corrected him as she did every time they met. She didn’t return the salute.

Between them, a service droid poured the tea.

“It’s too early to offer you a cocktail, but if you’d rather drink something stronger, I can have my help prepare you whatever you like,” Sloane told Hux stiffly.

“No, thank you, I’d prefer the tea,” Hux replied, taking the delicate porcelain cup and its matching saucer. He took a sip and made a display of setting the cup down before speaking. “I need information.”

Sloane didn’t look fazed by the bluntness of his request. “Color me surprised.”

“About Jakku,” Hux clarified. “About the Plaintive Hand Plateau.”

Whatever Sloane had been expecting to discuss, it wasn’t this. The lines in her aged face deepened as she frowned, studying him from dark eyes. “What about Jakku? It’s a junkyard now. Even the Hutts abandoned it.”

“Certain events near the Plaintive Hand have necessitated a military force—“

“Armitage,” Sloane interrupted, holding up her hand. “You don’t have to be coy with me.”

Hux felt a pang of irritation at the interruption, but spoke more plainly this time. “We’ve followed a hostile target to Jakku—two of them, as it happens. In our search, our forces were given intel to raid the Plaintive Hand Plateau for one of the targets. While based there, many of the troopers appear to have become afflicted with a very peculiar ailment—we’ve had five casualties so far.”

Sloane took another sip of her tea. “Some kind of flu, perhaps? Or toxin?”

“We considered that—I had the cadavers brought to the _Finalizer_ for inspection, but there appears to be no infection. The blood samples all came back unremarkable. It was the DNA samples that indicated a malformation—not strict mutations, but mismatched DNA and RNA within the same specimen.”

“Cancer, then?” Sloane suggested. “Science isn’t my specialty, Armitage.”

“We’re considering it, but the source has been traced to the Observatory within the Plaintive Hand Plateau. The same observatory you and your…cohorts…stopped Gallius Rax from destroying the Empire.”

Her dark eyes narrowed. “What are you asking?”

“You’ve been inside the Observatory—you spoke with Rax before his death. What did he tell you?”

Sloane looked disturbed by the memory. “I don’t think my encounter with Rax has anything to do with your soldiers’ recent ailment, Commander.”

“On the contrary,” Hux said. “You asked me to speak plainly, so I must request the same from you, Grand Admiral. I know Palpatine lost his mind near the end of his life, and I know he hoarded relics. I also know he intended to have the Empire destroyed in the event of his death—and given Rax’s actions in Jakku nearly thirty years ago, I’m led to believe the Observatory had something to do with it.”

Sloane studied him for a long moment, her arms folded across her chest.

“Tell your guard to leave us.”

Hux made a show of looking around the empty balcony.

“From the apartment,” Sloane clarified. “Turn your comm off, too.”

“Grand Admiral—“

“Do you think this is an assassination attempt?” She snapped. “This is off the record, even yours.”

Hux sighed in exasperation, but she had a point. Sloane didn’t achieve her rank by leaving a paper trail or easily divulging everything she knew. The events of her encounter with the former Counselor to the Empire could technically constitute treason and murder. Hux gave the order to his guard before removing his comm from his jacket, removing the battery and setting the pieces on the table between them.

“You know I shot Rax.”

“I do.”

“And that I enlisted rebel help to stop him.”

“Yes.”

Sloane took a deep breath, letting it out through her nose. “Much of the leadership feared Palpatine had lost his mind—so we took it upon ourselves to keep the Empire stabilized. Eliminating rogue Imperialists who saw Palpatine’s orders as more important than the survival of the Empire itself. A Contingency plan, Palpatine called it. Gallius Rax was one of many working under orders directly from Palpatine.”

“I am aware of those events,” Hux said calmly.

“The Imperial base in the Sinking Fields on Jakku was built with the sole purpose to attract the rebel army. I thought the Observatory was a weapons facility—all our intel indicated as such. Rax had surrounded himself with Palpatine’s former advisor and a sentinel droid programmed with the Emperor’s personality… We believed he was planning a suicide mission, intending to take out both remnants of the Empire and the Rebel Alliance.” Sloane took another deep breath, recalling the memory. “After I shot Rax, he told me about his true role in the Contingency plan: not to destroy the Empire, but to rebuild it. There was a Shadow Council—you know this part—that was dispatched to the Unknown Regions. A group of Palpatine’s most trusted strategists, generals, and scientists who would form the backbone of a new Empire. When the battle of Jakku reached its zenith, Rax had intended to detonate the entire planet—killing everyone who was left behind.”

“The Observatory is a detonator?” Hux asked, frowning. “Then what is the mechanism? Even planets with energy-rich cores would need untold amounts of ammunitions to react.”

“Jakku’s core is made of energy-rich Kyber, but it’s surrounded by a stable surface. Palpatine drilled a borehole deep into the core, and then erected the Observatory on top to hide it. I’m not sure of the details—it was beyond my understanding—but Rax said the detonation could be triggered by the Force. That’s why Tashu was with him—Tashu’s job was to cover himself in relics, perform some kind of Sith ritual, and then Rax pushed him into the borehole to trigger the detonation.”

Hux mulled over this information. He was well aware of the Contingency; his own father had been a key part of the Shadow Council. And while Hux knew better, the official report was that Rax was killed in the battle of Jakku. There was no mention of a detonator or construction of a borehole, no evidence that the Observatory was anything more than a research facility. Further, Hux’s research had indicated that all of Palpatine’s former relics were lost, likely stolen by his various apprentices following his death. It was preposterous to think they had been chucked into a hole with the intention of detonating an entire planet.

“What happened after Rax’s death?”

“We sealed the borehole and overrode the detonation sequence,” Sloane told him. “Then we evacuated to the _Imperialis._ I took Rax’s place on the Shadow Council, but to my knowledge none of them knew he had been charged with the task of detonating Jakku.”

Hux nodded his understanding. “What about the Supreme Leader?”

Sloane motioned for the server droid to refill their tea. “What about him?”

“Does he know?”

“I imagine so—but he will have his own reasons for keeping it secret.”

“And what were yours?”

“Outside of hiding the fact that I effectively murdered the then-leader of the Empire?” Sloane asked, sarcasm dripping from her voice. “It was for protection. I was never meant to be part of the Shadow Council—but I wasn’t going to walk away from it. You’re too young to remember, but the old Empire was bloated, full of corruption… officers who preferred a sense of personal power, even when it meant acting against the Empire… The knowledge of the Observatory and pretending to have been sent by Rax had been my bargaining chip in case anyone tried to oust me… not that it stopped you.”

Hux wasn’t affected by her accusation. “So why not tell them now? Clear the air?”

She shrugged. “What does it matter? I’m retired, no one bothers me here, and Jakku is a hunk of garbage in space.”

“What about the technology?” Hux asked. “The schematics, blue prints, all the plans for the Observatory’s construction—”

“That’s where it really doesn’t matter,” Sloane told him. “The information is lost. It’s beyond science and technology. Besides, if someone wanted to recreate a planet-wide detonation, they just have to go find Lieutenant Commander Galen Lux and pick her brain—“

Hux resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the mention of his competitor’s name.

“But if you want to know about how the Force was weaponized, you’ll need to find its practitioners—and that’s where it quickly devolves from science to religion. That information died with Rax, Palpatine, and all the others.”

“What became of the Observatory after you killed Rax?”

“After the detonation was stopped, we evacuated… The Shadow Council wasn’t concerned with it, or anything else on Jakku… so it was left to rot.”

“And no one suffered any illness? No one experienced unusual symptoms?”

“Like I said, Armitage—whatever your soldiers are afflicted with has nothing to do with Rax or what’s under that Observatory. I’m no doctor, but I’d hazard a guess that the outbreak is related to disease or poison on the planet itself.”

Hux considered her words. No other Corps unit on Jakku had experienced a similar outbreak, and none of the locals seemed familiar with the disease. The best information they had been able to gather were ridiculous stories about the Observatory being haunted. He considered the story Sloane had told him, acutely aware that the former Grand Admiral was prone to leaving out details that put her in an unfavorable light. The only way to know for certain what was happening under the old Observatory would be to dig it up.

 


	12. Last Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Malek and crew make a second meeting near the Outer Rim with the First Order, transferring supplies to transport ships destined for the Finalizer. Rey and Ben search for the Resistance.

The journey to Daxam IV took almost a day as the _Ghost_ effectively jumped from one side of the galaxy to the other. Finn worked to keep himself busy, but when it was his turn to sleep his thoughts kept drifting toward Rey. He wondered if she had made it home, if her family was everything she wanted… He hoped so…

After over twenty hours of space flight, Malek finally announced on the ship’s comms that they were in the Outer Rim. They would rendezvous in the Pamarthen hyperspace lanes to scramble their trail, then make a final jump to Daxam IV.

“You ever been there?” Finn asked Ulas. They were sitting in the ship’s lounge, an upturned crate between them as they played a modified game of chess.

“A few times,” Ulas allowed. He shook his head. “I hate it. It’s cold all the time, and near-constant darkness.”

Finn tried to ignore the lurch in his stomach as Malek constantly brought the _Ghost_ in and out of hyperspace, covering their tracks.

Finally they reached their destination, and the _Ghost_ descended onto the frozen, desert-like surface of Daxam IV. Malek was speaking to their buyer on the comms, following their instructions for landing. The crew was guided to an enormous refinery at least fifty miles from the nearest town. It was full of stone factories and swathes of concrete shipping docks, surrounded by a fortified fence and patrol towers. Finn was sure this drop off would be nothing like the friendly faces of the Resistance fighters he had met on Chandrilla.

Malek landed the ship within the gates, which made Finn more nervous. He looked between Ulas and the others, all grim-faced and quiet. The ship shuddered as it landed, the lights dimming to signal the air locks were released. Finn got to his feet, following the others down the ramp and onto the frozen landing pad.

The cold hit him hard, plunging through his veins and turning them into ice. Finn shivered violently, trying to pull into himself for what little warmth his clothes offered. Their breath came out in icy clouds around them.

There was an armed group waiting for them, dressed in heavy grey wool and white armor. The landing pad was closed off by a twenty-foot concrete wall, and Finn could see a First Order transport ship through the gates. His stomach dropped as he tore his eyes away, sure he was about to be exposed for the deserter he was.

Malek and their contact, a middle-aged man in a heavy fur-lined coat, sized each other up.

“I hope you have something good for us,” the man said, his voice accented. His tone was good-natured but it did nothing to put Finn at ease.

Malek gestured for them to begin unloading the crates. It was hard work, as their ramp had already formed a slick layer of ice. Tobi threw a coat at Finn, which he donned gratefully even if it smelled heavily of stale tobacco.

When all the crates were unloaded, the stranger gestured for Finn to step forward.

Finn’s breath caught in his throat, but he tried to keep his face calm and force his frozen limbs to work.

“Open it,” the man requested politely, folding his gloved hands across his front.

Finn caught Malek’s eye, who nodded. Hands stiff from fear and cold, Finn unlatched one of the crates on the nearest pallet and pulled the lid back. He had expected weapons of some kind, but was surprised to see dozens of glass vials, carefully packaged in a protective steel cage and surrounded by packing foam.

The creepy man stepped forward, examining the contents closely. He traced a gentle finger against one vial, his eyes bright with excitement. Then just as quickly, he stepped back and gestured for Finn to shut the case.

The man turned over his shoulder, right hand raised, and gestured with a flick of two fingers. Four armed guards stepped forward, blasters slung over their shoulders and heavy suitcases in hand.

“Payment, as agreed.”

The suitcases were piled at Malek’s feet, stacked neatly in a row. He bent down and opened them up, checking the contents quickly. Satisfied, he got back to his feet and held out a hand. “Until next time,” he said stiffly.

The man shook it, then gestured to his men to collect the grates the _Ghost_ had brought. Malek grabbed two of the bartered suitcases, with Finn, Ulas, and Toni following his lead. They loaded their payment quickly while Malek climbed into the cockpit.

“What was that?” Finn asked, glancing over his shoulder toward the ship’s exit seconds after the ramp locked into place and the door sealed shut. “In those crates?”

“It’s better not to ask, kid,” Ulas replied gruffly. “Help me lift these—“

Finn steadied one end of the suitcase while Ulas lifted them it a storage hold, tying it down.

“That was a First Order ship,” Finn hissed, leaning into Ulas’s ear.

“Yup.”

“And you’re okay with that? Bartering with them?” Finn asked, shaking his head. He felt sick.

“You wanna take sides, kid? ‘Cause if you do, then this ain’t the job for you. Now help me with the rest of these.”

When the last suitcase was loaded, Finn gave them a dark look. “We’re complicit,” he said with disgust, mostly at himself.

Ulas rolled his eyes, but Tobi gestured for Finn to sit with him.

“Look,” he said, leaning in close. “It’s just business—“

“That’s sick—“

“You wanna know what’s in those crates?” Tobi asked, nodding toward them.

Finn stole a glance. “Money, isn’t it?”

“Unrefined hyperspace fuel, enough to power a dozen Star Destroyers for months.”

Finn pulled a face, not understanding. “Okay…”

“Does this look like a Star Destroyer to you?” Tobi continued, making a show of looking around the cramped and disorganized cargo hold. “Money’s useless in this business—banks fail, governments fail—you trade in food, weapons, and fuel. That’s it. That’s what every system in the galaxy needs to survive.”

Around them, the ship shuddered into life as Malek began the ascent. “Prepare for hyperspace jump in two minutes,” his voice came over the ship’s comms.

“So who’re you selling the fuel to?” Finn asked, getting the hint.

“Independent systems, mostly,” Tobi replied, sinking into his seat until he was comfortable. “Research vessels, border patrol… Chandrilla’s a regular customer, too.”

“You’re taking First Order fuel cells and selling them to Republic ships?” Finn said aloud, eyebrows raised.

Tobi shrugged, unperturbed by the irony of enemy systems indirectly trading with each other.

“So what’d you give to the First Order, then?” Finn asked.

Tobi pulled a face. “Stem cells.”

“Stem what?”

“Look, I ain’t a scientist, so I’ll explain it best I can,” he said, kicking his feet up. “Each one of those vials back there has an organism in it—the blueprint for a human life. Now, I don’t know what the First Order wants with that sort of thing, but it ain’t my place to ask questions, not when they’re paying in unrefined coaxium.”

But Finn could guess. He had spent the last year assigned droid work on the _Finalizer,_ and he overheard enough conversations to know what The First Order and General Hux wanted with stem cells.

“A clone army,” he said aloud.

Tobi gave him a long look, eyebrows raised. “It’s better not to ask,” he said, repeating Ulas’s words.

The ship's comms crackled. “Prepare to jump in five… four…”

Finn sank back into his chair, this thoughts racing.

 

* * *

 

“What’s wrong?”

Ben half-turned from his spot in the pilot’s chair, pressing a few buttons on the ship’s computers and bringing up a satellite image. “See all these yellow lines?” Ben pointed at the screen. “Those are First Order ships.”

Rey leaned over Ben’s shoulder to get a better look, her face falling. “They’re swarming the planet.”

“There’s a Star Destroyer based behind Jakku’s moon,” Ben added, changing the image on the computer.

“So how do we sneak past them?”

Ben hesitated. “I don’t think we can.”

He had been up all night thinking about it, long before his bootleg First Order software compiled the reconnaissance data. It had seemed a tolerable idea to bring Rey to the Resistance—an ambitious idea, even. But then he began to think about his mother and her allies, and then his worries turned toward Luke Skywalker… Ben’s stomach twisted at every thought of his uncle, and he didn’t think he could force himself to face him.

Rey’s brows were knit together, her hazel eyes searching. “Did you change your mind?”

Ben hesitated again. He didn’t know what they should do.

“You did,” Rey said, falling back onto the jump seat. Her face was full of disappointment.

“It’s a suicide mission,” Ben said, finding his voice. He turned back toward his computer, which still displayed the location of the Star Destroyer in Jakku’s orbit. “My ship’s cloaking technology won’t get us past that Star Destroyer, not when it’s that close. And even if we get to the surface undetected, Jakku is swarming with First Order. There’s nowhere to hide.”

Rey was quiet behind him.

“I know you wanted to help—“

The sound of the cockpit door unlatching caused Ben to stop mid-sentence and turn around. Rey was already halfway out, her dusty linens trailing behind her. In spite of himself, Ben got up to follow.

“Rey!”

She turned on her heel at the sound of her name. “So what do we do?”

“We can’t—“

“I’m not giving up!” She shouted, pointing an accusatory finger in Ben’s direction. She stamped an impetuous foot into the ground. “I won’t!”

“There is nothing we can do about Jakku!” Ben told her sharply. “Do you understand? It’s done!”

Rey wasn’t deterred. “So then we go to the Resistance without him!”

“Really?”

“If what you said is true—“

“That’s not the point.”

“—then they’ll help us find a way to Jakku!”

“You don’t know that—“

“You don’t know they can’t!”

Ben pulled a face. “Yes I do—“

“The Resistance wouldn’t still be out there if they were as helpless as you think,” Rey insisted. “If you can’t get us onto Jakku, then we need to find someone who can!”

“No.”

She looked astonished. “ _No?”_

“This was not our agreement—“

“Is that all you care about?” She spat, eyeing him up and down as she took a step back.

“I care about staying alive—“

“You care about yourself,” Rey interrupted hotly.

Anger flashed in the pit of Ben’s stomach, blistering hot. Is that what Rey really thought of him? He risked his life to save hers, risked exposure to the First Order to take her off Jakku… they weren’t friends, not really, but Ben was sure his efforts to protect Rey should count for something.

“If you don’t want to do it for the Resistance, at least think about your mother—“

He gave her an affronted look, to which Rey replied, “You owe her an answer!”

This was too much. Being captured and so nearly brought back to the First Order, the danger on Jakku, and now Rey’s anger… it was coming over Ben in waves, twisting the air out of his lungs… he could feel his heart beating against his throat and his ears were ringing. If he didn’t regain control over himself…

He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to keep his anger buried. “Get in the ship.”

But Rey was angry too. “No!”

His hand dropped, his irritation flaring even hotter. “Get in the ship!”

“I’m not leaving until you promise me you’ll help—“

“Then I guess this planet’s your new home,” he spat acidly. “Enjoy your time here.”

There.

The hurt and disappointment, carved so clearly on Rey’s astonished face. Ben drank it in selfishly, rubbing it into the jagged edges of his soul, into the wounds left behind by self-hatred. It stung, sharp and hot, numbing his senses like an addict’s fix. He needed Rey to hate him, to spit on him and call him a monster. It was the only thing he knew, and he was lost without it.

 _Give it to me,_ his instincts seemed to say, bitter and needy. _Give me all of it…_

Rey didn’t respond right away, even as angry tears welled in her eyes. For a moment, she looked like she was struggling to decide which insult to hurl first, but then her face softened into something that resembled pity.

“Fine.”

It came out a whisper, barely escaping her lips before Rey turned on her heel and disappeared into the forest, leaving Ben to burn alone. He watched her go, his throat reduced to ash.

He thought he would feel in control again, pushing Rey away, but the emptiness in his chest lingered. For the first time, destruction brought no sense of relief. He felt exposed, as though he had stripped off even his skin and stood naked before the entire galaxy.

 

* * *

 

Rey’s angry footsteps carried her to the far edge of the lake, opposite from the spot where she and Ben had disposed of the relic two days before. The delicate hairs on her arms pricked up in the chill, sending shivers up her shoulders. Rey crossed her arms tightly, her jaw clenched against the scream of frustration that threatened to escape.

How? Just— _how?_

Rey’s brain couldn’t finish a single thought before ten more furious ones jumped to take its place. Her anger and disappointment were suffocating, making it impossible to think straight.

How could Ben do this to her? How could he just give up now?

 _You know why_ said a tiny, nagging voice in the back of her head.

 _Because he’s a fucking idiot_ , Rey countered.

She paced the lakeshore restlessly, debating with herself if she should go back and demand Ben take her back to Takodana. If he refused, could she force him? Would she need to steal his ship? Rey ran through half a dozen different scenarios in which she attacked and subdued Ben, but none of them brought her the cold satisfaction she was looking for.

Why didn’t Ben think the plan was possible? Why did he refuse to ask for help, to turn to the Resistance, why was he willing to let the last hope in the galaxy die? Even if Jakku was a suicide mission, it was worth it, wasn’t it?

 _He’s not afraid of death,_ Rey told herself, letting out a heavy breath. She glared out across the lake, watching the fog roll down from the mountains. _It’s something else…_

 _So I’ll go,_ Rey decided. _He doesn’t have to come to Jakku…_

Rey turned her attention skyward, half expecting to see Ben’s ship ascending toward space. Part of her was annoyed to see only grey skies, because it meant Ben was still in the woods where she had left him and at some point they would need to talk.

_I don’t want to talk to him._

Rey sat down on a log, resting her forehead in her palms as she glared at the muddy ground. For a long moment she glowered, allowing realization to creep through her bones.

No matter what he decided, Rey needed Ben. She needed his ship, his intel on the First Order, and…

Rey shoved the thought away, adjusting her weight on the log. A mist was building on the lake, fueled by the fog rolling down from the mountains.

“I’m afraid, too,” she said aloud, crossing her arms over her chest again. She let out a sigh, deflating.

She knew what it meant to be afraid, to lay awake at night all alone and wonder if anyone was coming back for her. She knew the temptation of losing hope, of accepting the worst so she didn’t have to be disappointed time and time again… She knew what it felt like to be left behind…

Rey thought of Finn, of their last conversation. He was so set on running away and had begged Rey to do the same… But she had turned him down, so convinced that someone was waiting for her on Onderon… She had believed she was important… Was she the one who was wrong? Did Finn and Ben actually know better, and Rey was being naive to think she mattered in the galaxy?

An image of a sleek black starship surrounded by sand entered her mind’s eye. Rey thought of the Plaintive Hand Plateau, and the creeping force that lived beneath… It couldn’t possibly be coincidence that Ben landed on Jakku, that he was Force-sensitive and found Rey just as the Force awakened in her… It all had to mean _something_ …

Rey sat on the lakeshore for hours, her thoughts chasing themselves in circles. Her moods shifted from pity to rage, but she knew she needed to get a handle on herself before she appealed to Ben. At the very least, he would probably be willing to take her to a neutral location and she could find her way to Jakku or the Resistance from there…

Soon the mist surrounded Rey, enveloping her in a chilly white fog that numbed her burning senses. It dampened her clothes and hair, sending shivers down her spine, but the cold was sharp and clear. Rey breathed in the damp mountain air, allowing it to spread through her lungs, her veins, and into every inch of her body. It steadied her, a weighted blanket that flooded Rey’s senses with a sense of peace. She could feel the gentle tumble of the fog coming down the mountains, the dampness of the dark skies overhead, and the way the ground shifted beneath her, quick to absorb the misty rainfall that fed life to this planet.

Her resolve was reborn, free of the white-hot anger that had suffocated her that morning. Rey pushed herself back to her feet and made the trek back toward the ship.

 

* * *

 

“You came back.”

Rey’s footsteps came to a stop, her eyes finding Ben’s face in the low light. “Yeah.”

A long silence passed while they sized each other up. Ben was sitting in the grass near his ship, surprised by Rey’s return. She had been expecting a continuation of their fight, but Ben looked so defeated. In that moment, Rey was sure she could talk him into anything and he’d agree just to get her to leave him alone.

In the end, it was Rey who spoke first.

“Aren’t you tired yet?” She asked, shaking her head with disbelief. She had meant to start with an appeal to discussion, to at least consider alternative plans, but she was just so tired of fighting him. “All this running, this lying… You hate so many things, but you don’t want to. You push away anything good, and it’s like you _want_ to suffer. You’re so afraid.” She gave Ben a long look, full of pity and sorrow and heartbreak. “Aren’t you tired?”

Ben’s eyes were locked on hers, soft and worn. A muscle worked in his jaw as he considered his answer. When he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse and so very tired.

“Yeah.”

Rey’s chest rose and fell with each breath. She looked at Ben for a moment longer, considering. This was a broken mess of a man before her, one who was responsible for so much danger and pain, but had also given Rey freedom and a purpose… She had been alone her whole life, had even preferred the solitude in her later years, and didn’t know much about other people or their inner workings. They didn’t have clear components, like engines and valves and compressors. The only thing she was ever any good at was fixing broken things and waiting.

But Ben had waited too, in the exact spot Rey left him that morning. His mission was completed, his debt repaid, and still he waited, tearing himself apart with worry and self-hatred in the process. It counted for something. It gave her courage.

“Okay.” She walked past him toward the shuttle, her footsteps heavy, but hovered by the hatch. She turned around to see him watching, unmoving.

“Are you coming?”

He considered it, his brows knitting together. Rey had no idea what she’d do if Ben turned her down, but she suspected Ben had always wanted to return home, too. He just needed someone to ask him.

Years of suffering and silence came to the surface, and Rey realized she wouldn’t feel too upset if Ben walked away from everything. She couldn’t force him to go, not when he had so many good points against it and she had none. She was a worthless scavenger with nothing to give except her loyalty, so it was all she offered. She hoped it would be enough, but she supposed someone else could go to Jakku, someone else would find Luke and bring him to the Resistance and save the galaxy…

Wordlessly Ben pushed himself to his feet and approached his ship. He stopped just inches from Rey, a steady resignation crossing his features. Rey’s breath caught in her throat as he reached in front of her to open the hatch. In the dim light, their eyes met.

“Get in the ship.”

He held the door open for her, waiting for Rey to pass. A slow, thin smile broke its way across her face as she climbed inside, Ben just behind her.

 

* * *

 

Ben took them back toward Takodana, only an hour’s jump from Ambria.

“Maz will know how to get us in touch with the Resistance,” he told her just as the ship made the jump to hyperspace.

Rey nodded her understanding, ignoring the sudden lurch in her stomach at the jump. “Are you nervous?”

He let out a humorless laugh.

“I can do all the talking,” Rey offered, half serious.

Ben spun around in the pilot’s seat to face her. “We should discuss what we’re going to say.”

Rey sat up straighter, suddenly feeling very serious. “Okay.”

“We’re probably going to be handed off to a low-level commander. Maybe we don’t even get past the comms officer. I think it’s best if we insist on speaking to the General or her staff directly. Our appeal is that we have information that could lead to the whereabouts of Skywalker. One sentence. Nothing else.”

“What if they don’t believe us?”

Ben pulled a face leaning back in his seat as he crossed his arms. “Then we go with my second plan, which is to surrender to the Resistance.”

Rey cocked her head, eyebrows raised. He couldn’t be serious. “You’re insane.”

“We need to speak with the General directly, or whoever represents her. If they refuse to talk to us based on our intel, then we’ll make them come to us instead. They’ll never pass up an opportunity to capture Kylo Ren—“

“And you’re certain that’s safe? They won’t just… shoot you?”

He hesitated a split second. “I’m of more use to them alive than dead.”

“Famous last words.”

“I’ll let you write my epitaph.”

“So what happens if we go with your second plan?” Rey asked tentatively, rubbing at the tension in the base of her neck.

“We’ll be arrested, separated for questioning… insist you will only speak with the General—“

“How will I know it’s her?”

“She’s the only one who won’t flinch when you mention my name.”

“I meant like her appearance—“

“Short, brown hair, and she can be intimidating.”

Rey let out an anxious breath. This backup plan was truly insane, but Ben seemed to have thought it out in detail. “So I just tell her everything?”

Ben nodded. “Yes.”

“Even the stuff about you? The Oracle stuff, Aayla and Darin, the relic?”

“Our story doesn’t make sense without it.”

He was all business, a little nervous but nothing else. Rey felt more terrified of this meeting than Ben, and it wasn’t her estranged family she was confronting…

“What if she asks about… you know…”

“Tell her whatever you need,” Ben replied curtly, turning his chair back around to face the console.

They didn’t speak much more the rest of the journey. It was nighttime on Takodana, forcing Ben to navigate much more slowly as he descended onto the dark, forested planet.

Rey had been here just three short days ago, but it felt like months. The grass was damp with dew, the chilly air filled with the shrill chirps and buzzing of whatever nighttime creatures lurked in the woods. Ben appeared at her side with a flashlight in hand, leading the way toward Maz Kanata’s castle.

Rey expected the doors to be locked and the fires put out, but the cantina was just as warm and smoky as ever. The tables were empty, their chairs turned over, and Rey got the creeping feeling that they were breaking in.

“I thought I heard someone.,” came a familiar voice. “Back so soon?”

They whipped around to see Maz emerging from the cellar staircase, looking tired but amused. “I assume you need something. Desperately.”

“Yes,” Ben replied without preamble.

Maz wiped her hands on the rag she was carrying and beckoned them to follow. “Over here.”

A few tables near the bar still had their chairs around, and Maz cleared off the empty glasses to make room.

“What time is it?” Rey wondered.

“Very late. Something to eat?” Maz asked, eyeing them through her magnified lenses.

“Please,” Ben said, rubbing a hand across his tired eyes.

“I’m afraid I’m all out of sun berry wine,” Maz added, directing this comment to Rey.

It took Rey a moment to understand what Maz was talking about, but when she did, she smacked a palm to her forehead, grimacing. “Oh—no, I forgot about that—“

“Have a seat, I’ll be right back.”

Ben and Rey sank into the chairs opposite each other, slumped over the table. Rey realized she hadn’t eaten a proper meal since she had last been in this very cantina, and her stomach twisted in hunger at the thought. They sat in silence, their exhaustion from the last several days finally catching up to them. Rey rested her head in her palms, fighting against the instinct to close her eyes and go to sleep.

Maz returned several minutes later with a tray and began unloading dishes onto the table. “The kitchen’s closed at this hour, so you’ll have to make do with this—“

Rey and Ben didn’t protest, immediately reaching for several wheat rolls apiece and tearing into them.

Maz slid into one of the empty chairs, looking between them both carefully. “Bad news in Onderon?”

Rey looked up, surprised that Maz knew about the danger that befell them in Iziz.

Ben sighed, looking more weary than ever. “You could say that.”

“I heard. It’s been the talk of the cantina all day. You’re very luck, you know—“

“I know.”

It was Maz’s turn to sigh. “So what brings you back?”

“I have a debt to settle.”

Rey watched the exchange, glad that she didn’t have to do more than listen and stay awake. She tore a roll in half and stuffed it with the unknown meat and cheese Maz had brought.

“We need your help making contact, and we need to move fast,” Ben continued, rubbing his tired face once again.

“This is quite the change,” Maz noted, appraising Ben carefully. She moved the magnified lenses away from her eyes, sitting back in her chair. “My call sign holds a lot of weight with her, but I can’t say that my message will be well-received. It’s rather hard to believe.”

“It has to be her,” Ben added, looking at Rey. “What we have to say…”

“Is dangerous.” Maz picked up Ben’s hints easily. “I’ll get a message out tonight.”

“I need coordinates.”

Maz looked skeptical.

Ben’s face fell a little. “Please.”

“I’ll see what I can swing. Eat up,” She instructed, looking at both of them. Maz stood up from her chair, heading toward the kitchen. “You won’t want to linger long, I’m sure.”

Rey and Ben finished off their dinner, picking at the food while they waited in silent anticipation for Maz’s return.

“What d’you think they’ll say?” Rey wondered aloud. Maz had been gone for the better part of an hour, leaving them alone in her cantina to wonder what was going on.

Ben shrugged, his fingers laced tightly together in front of his face.

Rey sighed, adjusting her weight in the chair. She was getting nervous, unable to sit still. Had Maz made contact with the Resistance? Were they perhaps negotiating how this meeting would take place? Rey caught sight of Maz’s grey skullcap over the bar, and she nearly jumped out of her seat.

“Your message has been received,” Maz said diplomatically. Then she faltered a little, a dark look crossing her features. “And I received a short reply, although it’s not what you were hoping for.”

Rey’s heart sank, her eyes darting to Ben and back to Maz. “What’d they say?”

“They won’t offer up coordinates, nor are they willing to meet elsewhere at this time.”

Rey looked at Ben, who was ashen. She opened her mouth to speak, but Ben beat her to it.

“Tell them Kylo Ren surrenders.”

Maz was taken aback.

“Ben, no—“ Rey began.

“I surrender, and they can take custody of me here,” Ben continued as though there had been no interruption. He spoke with calm assurance, ignoring the alarmed expressions from Maz and Rey.

“No, he doesn’t,” Rey insisted, turning to Maz. She couldn’t let him go through with this. “Ben, there’s got to be another way—“

“I surrender unconditionally, I’ll give up information, say whatever you think will get them here faster—“

“I think you should listen to your friend,” Maz said, a dark look crossing her face. “This is a dangerous plan, even for you. At least sleep on it—“

But Ben was already unclipping his blaster from its holster and setting it on the table. “My other weapons are in the ship. They won’t be able to fly it directly, but it’ll handle in a cargo hold.”

Rey was on her feet, face flushed. “Ben!”

“Do you want us to stay here, or is there some kind of holding cell?” Ben asked, ignoring Rey’s protests. “I don’t want to cause a scene for you—”

“No, because that would be crazy—“ Rey said heatedly.

Maz’s face was fixed into a look of resignation. “I hope you understand what you’re doing,” she said. She let out a heavy sigh, shaking her head. “This is the sort of foolish plan your father would have carried out.”

“Maz!”

But Maz had already slipped away toward the kitchens to send out Ben’s final message.

Rey shoved her chair out of the way, ready to follow, but Ben leaned across the table to grab her arm. “Rey, stop—“

She whipped around. “This is insane! I can’t believe I agreed to this! I won’t let you—“

“It’s not your decision—“

“No, this was my plan too, and I changed my mind. What if it doesn’t work?” Rey demanded, fear flooding her veins. It wasn’t her own wellbeing she was concerned about. “What if they don’t listen? You heard Maz—they wouldn’t even meet with us—“

Ben let go of her arm, but stood up to block Rey’s path to the kitchen.

“The Resistance isn’t like the First Order,” Ben told her. “They usually don’t shoot first—“

But Rey couldn’t stop the mental image of Ben being led away in cuffs, lined up against a wall and shot on the castle steps. Their story was long and complicated, and there was almost no evidence to back up their claims… even if the Resistance heard them out, it was no guarantee Ben and Rey would be believed…

“It’s not worth it,” Rey decided shaking her head. “I’m not trading you for Luke Skywalker—“

Maz reappeared, grim-faced. Ben and Rey turned to her expectantly.

“They’re on their way.”

Ben stood tall, his pale face set in a careful mask of coolness and determination. Rey didn’t understand how he could be so calm, not when a group of armed rebels were headed their way to capture them…

“This is a risky plan to get their attention, Ben,” Maz told him soberly.

“She won’t let them do anything extreme,” he replied.

Maz regarded him sadly. “It might not be her choice.”

“How long until they get here?” Rey asked. Adrenaline was pumping through her veins, pressuring her to run.

“I don’t know,” Maz said. “I told them you were unarmed and cooperative, so hopefully they won’t burst through my doors, blasters drawn.”

Rey turned to Ben, catching his eye. “It’s not too late.”

He took his seat, folding his hands across the table and letting out a heavy breath through his nose. He stared at his hands when he spoke. “I made my decision.”

Just then, Maz’s wrist commlink began to beep. Everyone’s eyes latched on to it, and Rey didn’t dare breathe. Maz checked the message before looking at Ben and then Rey.

“They’re here.”


	13. Prodigal Son

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben and Leia have a long-awaited talk.

The door slid shut, and Rey’s eyes darted toward it before looking around the room. It was plain, with durasteel walls and and three mismatched chairs crammed inside. There were no windows, no clock or other features to determine place or time. Rey adjusted her position in the chair she had chosen, waiting.

It wasn’t a holding cell exactly, but there was nothing comforting about this space. Rey knew she and Ben would be separated, and she wondered where he was and how he was faring. Her stomach churned at the memory of the Resistance fighters flanking him in Maz’s cantina, shackling his hands like he was some kind of criminal and dragging him away. She had fought the urge to defend him, to grab his surrendered blaster and free him from the Resistance.

Rey ran her hands over her face, pressing the heels of her hands against her temples. She felt sick.

After an unknown amount of time, the door slid open and a woman entered. Rey needed to only catch a glimpse of her before she knew this woman was the General of the Resistance, Leia Organa.

Ben’s mother.

Leia sat down in one of the vacant chairs, fixing Rey with a look she couldn’t read. Rey felt herself straighten up, ready to divulge everything. Had Leia already spoken with her son? Probably not—not enough time had lapsed—

“Can I get you something to drink?” Leia asked. “Water? Caf?”

Rey shook her head, trying to find her voice. “General—“

But Leia held up a hand to silence her. “There’s much to discuss, but not much time—“

Rey panicked. What did that mean?

“I have a great deal of questions, and I’m hoping you can answer them for me,” Leia continued. She even sounded like a politician. She sat in her chair, not too stiff or too relaxed, her body angled to face Rey. Her hands were folded in her lap, one leg crossed over the other. She had Ben’s brown eyes and unreadable face, the same air of authority he carried around effortlessly, but none of his height.

Rey waited, afraid she would explode if she tried to speak first.

“Does anyone else know you’re here?”

Rey shook her head sharply.

“Are you expected anywhere? Is anyone waiting for you?”

She shook her head again.

Leia fixed Rey with a long look. It was serious, but not unkind. “Were you with Kylo Ren of your own free will?”

Rey unstuck her throat.

“Ben.”

Leia’s face seemed to twitch, her shoulders stiffen, but she schooled her features back into their careful mask immediately. “Excuse me?”

“I know his name is Ben,” Rey said, her hands trembling in her own lap. “I know who you are—and his father was Han Solo, and he was trained by Luke Skywalker—“

Leia adjusted her weight in the chair. “Please, there’s not a lot of time—were you with Ben out of your own choice?”

“Yes,” Rey replied immediately. “We’re friends. He saved my life—“

“Do you know why he surrendered to the Resistance?” Leia continued, her self-control impossibly strong.

“Because we have information that could lead to the location of Luke Skywalker,” Rey recited, repeating the sentence she had practiced with Ben during their journey to Takodana. “You didn’t want to speak with us, so… so this was the back up plan.”

“And what is it you expect in exchange?”

Rey didn’t understand the question. She frowned, hesitating. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Surely such information comes with a price,” Leia explained.

Rey shook her head. “No,” she exclaimed. “No—we want to help—General, please, if you just give me five minutes of your time, I can explain everything. Ben isn’t who you think he is—“

“He’s not Kylo Ren, aid and apprentice to the Supreme Leader of the First Order?” Leia asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow. She seemed to grow a hundred feet tall, or perhaps Rey had suddenly become very small under the General’s gaze…

Rey was faltering. Her fear made it difficult to think straight. “No! I mean—he was—but it wasn’t his choice—“

“You do know that Kylo Ren was executed several weeks ago by the First Order?” Leia continued in the same authoritative tone. “It was a televised event.”

Rey’s brain felt like it had hit a wall. “I know that, but it wasn’t real—“

“Kylo Ren is dead.”

“No, he’s not! I mean Ben’s not! He’s on this ship, your fighters arrested him!” Rey insisted, pointing toward the door behind Leia.

“So your story is that you and a man claiming to be the deceased Kylo Ren have information about the location of Luke Skywalker, and you agreed to surrender yourselves—without terms or demands—to the Resistance?”

Rey’s answer was immediate. “Yes.”

Leia’s eyes were searching, a fine line forming between her eyes. “How long have you been companions?”

Rey wracked her brain. The answer, though truthful, seemed absurdly short. “A week?”

“How did you meet?”

“His ship crashed on Jakku—I was hired to repair it. And then the First Order came after him, so we fled. First to Takodana, then to Onderon.”

“Why Onderon?”

“It’s my homeworld—he agreed to take me there in exchange for repairing his ship. General—“

“What brought you back to Takodana?”

“We were discovered,” Rey rushed to say. “In Iziz, by the First Order. They were taking us to their base, but we escaped and went to Ambria, because Ben needed to destroy a relic—that’s how all this started—“

“How what started?”

“All of it—the Oracle program, the mind control—it’s why Ben’s ship crashed on Jakku, because he had stolen the relic and was shot down when he was trying to run—and we were talking, and that’s when Ben and I agreed to find you, to tell you about our plan to find Luke Skywalker.”

Leia’s comm beeped.

“Excuse me,” she murmured, checking the message. She got to her feet. “I’m sorry, but that’s all the time I have right now—“

“Did you talk to Ben?” Rey asked desperately, leaning forward in her chair. “General—please—he’s your son—“

Leia hesitated by the doorway, casting Rey a strange look. “Wait here—someone will be by shortly.”

It wasn’t like Rey had a choice. She knew the door locked behind the General.

Rey shot to her feet, pacing the tiny room anxiously. Was the General going to talk to Ben next? Had she believed a word Rey said? It was impossible to tell…

She could feel her stomach twisting, threatening to send her into a fit of retching, but Rey swallowed it back. She needed to stay calm, to keep her cool like Ben had instructed… he had a plan, they had gone over this… Leia wouldn’t let anything terrible happen to her son…

 

* * *

 

The holding cell was cold and sterile, with solid walls of durasteel and a single airlock door in the corner. Ben sat stiffly in his chair, watching the doorway, and waited.

He knew there were cameras in the room, trained on him and watching his every move. He knew there had to be Resistance fighters watching him from the safety of another room, analyzing his body language and discussing their theories for his sudden and unexpected surrender. Ben wondered if his mother was among them, trying to gain the upper hand before she had to face him.

Would she? Or would Leia send someone else?

The stun cuffs around his wrists were cold, heavy his skin, a constant reminder of his predicament. Ben knew the steps of the game, for he had interrogated his own share of prisoners on behalf of the First Order. The Resistance was letting him wait on purpose, dragging out the start of the interrogation to put him off balance. They wanted to make him wonder what was going on behind that cell door. They wanted him to panic.

Ben focused on his breathing, counting each breath. It kept his heart rate steady, but it also occupied his mind, preventing him from worrying about all of the things that were now out of his control…

Eventually the airlock door opened, but it wasn’t the General who entered.

Poe Dameron, the Resistance Flight Commander and leader of Black Squadron… he was brave but hot-headed, full of fiery resolve and fierce loyalty to Leia Organa’s mission… His thoughts rolled off him in waves, flooding Ben’s senses. In the time it took for Poe to cross the room and join Ben at the table, Ben knew everything he needed to about this Resistance fighter.

“Comfortable?” Poe asked, leaning over the table like he was chatting with an old friend.

Ben didn’t move. “Not really.”

“Well, we kind of operate on a different budget than the First Order. No funds for all the amenities you’re used to.” Poe’s dark eyes searched his face. “Why’d you give yourself up?”

So they were going to waste his time with a hot-headed Flight Commander while the General and her top allies watched from a holoscreen down the hall… Ben could wait this out.

“Not much for talking, huh?” Poe asked, tapping his fingers against the table. “Funny, because if memory serves me right, you reached out to us because you wanted to talk.”

Ben didn’t answer. He wouldn’t do anything until the General arrived.

“You want to know what your little girlfriend had to say about you?” Poe tried next, shaking his head at some strange memory. “Totally crazy… you sure it wasn’t her who sent the message? ‘Cause she had a lot to say.”

This was bait, Ben told himself. It’s possible that someone was speaking to Rey, but Rey was smart and knew exactly what to say… there wasn’t any danger there…

So why did his heart suddenly start hammering in his chest?

“Mostly it was nonsense, but she brought up the fact that you had a run-in with the First Order… of course you escaped _again,_ of course she didn’t actually see it… D’you wanna know what I think?” Poe continued in a low voice, leaning across the table between them. He gave Ben a long, hard glare. “I think you’re a liar and a coward… I think you’re just using that girl you were with. You don’t care about the Resistance. You don’t care about anyone. You’re just trying to get to Skywalker so you can walk right back into Snoke’s good graces.”

Ben broke the eye contact, trying desperately to squash the panic that was suddenly bubbling in his chest at the mention of the Supreme Leader’s name.

Poe sat back in his chair, tapping his fingers on the table. Several silent minutes passed.

“You still have nothing you wanna say?” Poe asked.

Ben found his voice. “Not to you.”

 

* * *

 

Poe entered the small security office across the hall from Kylo Ren’s holding cell, running a hand over his jaw. All eyes went to him, Leia’s included.

“You sure made an impression, Poe.”

“You told me to rattle his cage,” Poe said, shaking his head.

“Right, but not to antagonize him.”

“He’ll sit there forever if we let him. I don’t think he’s going to budge, General.”

Leia nodded, her face set into a hard mask. “I didn’t think he would,” she admitted. She turned back toward the holoscreen, watching the live feed of Kylo Ren in his holding cell. He sat so still it could have been a photograph.

“The only thing I got was he seemed a little freaked out by Snoke’s name—and Snoke tried to kill him, so I don’t think that means anything more.”

Poe took his seat in the security office. Kaydel Connix was monitoring the live feed while Leia stood in front of the monitor. Elsewhere in the room was the ship’s Vice Admiral, Amilyn Holdo, and Major Taslin Brance.

“Should we talk to the girl again? Rey?” Holdo suggested. She was sitting next to Connix, arms and legs crossed. “We didn’t give her much of a chance to speak.”

Leia thought about it, then said, “She’ll only parrot what Kylo Ren instructed her to say.”

“The information might be useful.”

Leia sighed, still staring at the screen. “What if they’re telling the truth?”

Everyone in the room exchanged dubious looks, unnoticed by Leia.

“We know about General Hux’s Oracle program,” Leia continued. “We know the First Order went to Jakku, then to Onderon, seeking fugitives… That part of their story is true.” Leia turned to Connix. “Can you get a message out to General Ematt, see if they have any updates on their intel about the skirmish on Onderon? We might as well start confirming the details of their story.”

“Right away, ma’am.”

“What about him?” Poe asked, nodding toward the holoscreen. “You want to let him wait some more?”

Leia sighed tiredly. “No. No, there’s no point trying to shake him up, he’ll see right through it.”

“His original message was to talk to us,” Holdo pointed out. “Want me to go in there?”

“I’ll do it.”

Poe caught Holdo’s eye; she looked just as perturbed as he felt.

“General, that’s just giving him what he wants—“ he began.

“Sometimes cooperation goes a lot further than secrecy,” Leia said, stepping by Poe and clapping him on the shoulder. She had the air of someone who wouldn’t be swayed, and Poe knew there was no negotiating once the General had made up her mind. “Keep the recording going, Kaydel, I’ll want to review this after.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Poe sighed, stepping forward so he had a better look at the holoscreen.

“This feels like a trap, but I can’t see how,” Holdo muttered, frowning.

“Yeah,” Poe agreed, anxiety settling in his stomach. “I know exactly what you mean.”

“He’s her son,” Major Brance pointed out, speaking up. “Maybe we’re looking at it wrong—he’s not coming to us out of politics.”

Holdo raised an eyebrow at him. “You think this is some kind of twisted family reunion?”

Brance shrugged. “He only wants to talk to Leia.”

“Yeah, because she’s got the authority to agree to his demands,” Poe said.

“Or because he’s her son.”

On the holoscreen, Leia appeared in the doorway.

“Turn the volume up,” Poe instructed, leaning forward.

Connix did as she was told. Everyone leaned in, eyes glued to the live feed before them.

 

* * *

 

There was no preparing for this encounter, so Leia entered the holding cell with little more than a deep breath.

The last time Leia had seen Ben, he was a gangly teenager three years into his training with Luke. He was already tall, with Han’s roguish humor and her own evasive demeanor, but he was still just a boy back then. Now he was a man, so far beyond Leia’s reach despite the mere feet that separated them.

Leia took Poe’s vacated seat, sitting herself in the same neutral way she did when meeting dangerous but vitally important people: head-on, firm eye contact, and her hands folded neatly in her lap. She gave herself a few seconds to drink in her son’s face, a personal indulgence, her eyes lingering on the long scar that cut across his cheek. She wondered what other scars he had, wondered at the stories behind each mark on his skin…

“We received your transmissions,” she finally said. “What did you want to talk about?”

Ben didn’t reply right away. He was watching her carefully, his face conflicted. Leia could see apprehension and anger, deep oceans of it, but there was also a thick layer of resolve. He didn’t come here for her, or even himself; it was all business.

“Luke,” he finally replied, a muscle twitching in his face so fast Leia almost missed it.

Leia nodded her understanding, giving herself another moment to sort through the memories her long lost twin’s name brought to the forefront of her mind. Ben’s transmission had indicated that he had information on Luke’s whereabouts, and the girl Rey had confirmed. But why would Ben get involved? It was risky on all accounts, and she couldn’t find a motivation suitable enough to explain Ben’s sudden surrender.

“He told me what happened,” Leia said, hearing the sadness in her own voice.

Ben took in a deep breath through his nose and let it out before speaking. “Did he?”

He was testing her. This wasn’t a negotiation tactic, this was Ben being himself. He was wary, hesitant to believe the words and motivations from the people around him, especially those of his mother.

“Do you want to know what he said?” Leia asked.

Ben seemed to consider it. “No,” he finally decided. “That’s not why I’m here.”

“Why are you here?”

“I know how to find him.”

“So you decided to come here.”

“I thought you’d like to know, too.”

“Why?”

Ben cocked his head, studying her just as much as she was studying him. Underneath the table, her folded hands were clasped together so tightly she was losing circulation in her fingers.

“Is that what you want to talk about?” He asked. “My feelings about Luke?”

“There’s plenty of time to get to the good part,” Leia replied.

“So are you just going to ask me questions, or do I get to say my peace?”

Leia bit her lip. She had to decide. Maz’s transmissions and Rey’s story seemed to indicate this was a genuine appeal, but Leia understood that every second Kylo Ren was on the _Ninka_ was a security risk to the Resistance. She was vaguely aware of High Command watching this meeting from the other room. They were the only ones who knew Ben’s true identity, and Leia knew they worried whether her feelings would overtake her logical side. Mother over leader. She would have to toe the line very, very carefully.

“You said you surrender unconditionally,” Leia pointed out.

“I needed to talk to you. You weren’t going to.” Ben sighed, visibly annoyed. “Look—“

“Ben, wait,” Leia said, holding up a hand to silence him.

“There isn’t time for this—“

“Listen to me—“

“—The First Order’s making advances, and—“

“ _Ben._ ”

He finally fell silent, glaring at her. He was visibly annoyed by her stalling. “What?”

“You chose to surrender to the Resistance, but we do not have the authority to take custody of you. We cannot try you with the law, or impose sentencing—“

Ben rolled his eyes. Leia would have to be quick if she was going to make her point clear before he gave away his cards.

“Inter-galactic law commands that you be turned over to the Senate for judicial processing,” Leia rushed to say. She was staring into her son’s face, willing him to read the secret thoughts at the forefront of her mind. “Because you surrendered _unconditionally,_ I cannot delay that process. Do you understand?”

It was impossible to tell if he did.

“I know your transmission indicated you would surrender without terms,” Leia continued pointedly. “But I also know that was just to get my attention. Right?”

His dark eyes, the same ones she had, narrowed.

She leaned forward, desperate for him to cooperate. “So before we go any further, _I need to know what your terms are._ I cannot turn you over to the Senate until we negotiate.”

“Fine,” he said curtly. “Amnesty.”

“The Resistance is not authorized to approve a full pardon.”

Ben rolled his eyes again. “Clemency, then. I’ll give you Skywalker if you let Rey and me go.”

Leia could only imagine what the others were muttering to each other in the next room. She was perfectly agreeable to these terms, but that was as Ben’s mother. She needed to be the Resistance General first.

“I want information,” she said. “About the Oracle program, General Hux’s motivations, everything you know about the movements within the First Order.”

“I’m not part of the First Order,” Ben said coolly. “I would have thought my televised execution made that clear.”

Leia knew the execution was false—had known the moment it happened—but it still turned her stomach to think about it. “No, but you worked directly under the direction of the Supreme Leader for many years.”

There was a long silence while the two sized each other up. Ben was thinking it over, and something like disappointment crossed his scarred face. “Fine.”

Leia swallowed the lump in her throat. She wanted Ben to understand the difference, to see that this negotiation was a political one and not a personal one. She had no other choice but to be the General if she was going to save him. “Fine.”

“What part would you like to hear first?” He asked, his voice full of bitterness.

Leia’s eyes dropped to her son’s hands, to the stun cuffs binding his wrists together. All of a sudden she hated her own protocol. She could just remove them, but any more special treatment toward Ben would dissuade High Command from following her. To them, he would always be Kylo Ren, just another soldier in the upper ranks of the First Order. They would never know Ben like Leia did.

 _I don’t really know him at all,_ Leia thought suddenly, a vice gripping her heart.

“Where is Luke?”

Ben shook his head. “I don’t know. But we think a hermit on Jakku knows. Lor San Tekka.”

Leia knew that name. San Tekka had once been an advisor of sorts for Luke in his early years, long before the Jedi Academy.

“The problem,” Ben continued. “Is that the First Order’s also looking for him. They’ve swarmed the planet. The _Finalizer_ is parked behind the moon. You’ll need to find him before Snoke does.”

“Excuse me a moment,” Leia told him, reaching into her vest pocket for her commlink, preparing a message. “Run scans on Jakku’s orbit, find out what we’re looking at.” She lowered her hand, her attention back on her son. “Continue.”

“You’re looking for a map fragment, as far as we know,” Ben said, his chest rising and falling with a deep breath. “First Order intel is that Luke went to the first Jedi temple.”

“That’s what we heard, too.”

“That’s all I know. What’s next?”

Leia sighed, unhappy with the stiff formality of this meeting. She had dreamt of their reunion for years, had imagined a thousand different ways this could go. Her son sitting prisoner at her mercy had not been Leia’s first choice. She rubbed at her own wrists, at the phantom cuffs she imagined to be there. “Do you need something to drink? We’re going to be here a while—“

“No, I’d rather get this done now,” was his curt reply.

Leia nodded, crestfallen. She had hoped to offer her son at least one or two small comforts, all things considered. “Okay. What happened on Onderon?”

“I was traveling with Rey. We had an agreement, and my end of the bargain was to bring her to Iziz. The First Order followed us there, either from Jakku or Takodana, I don’t know which. We were captured and en route to the _Finalizer_ on a transport ship.”

Leia knew there was much more to this particular story. “And?”

“And we were questioned.”

“About what?”

A dark looked flashed across Ben’s face, so fast Leia almost missed it. His throat bobbed, a muscle working near his jaw before he answered. “About what we were doing there.”

“Then what?”

“I escaped—“

“How?”

He gave her a look. “How do you think?”

Leia bristled a little. “It’s for the record.”

Ben took a steadying breath, annoyed. “I was restrained by some kind of lizard venom—that’s what they told me. It completely inhibited my ability to use the Force, but it wore off. I broke free—with the Force,” he added pointedly. “And found Rey. We stole a TIE fighter, switched back to my ship on Onderon, and fled for Ambria. We went to Ambria because I’ve spent the last several weeks looking for Force relics and destroying them. I had one on my ship when I first crashed on Jakku.”

“Why were you seeking out relics?” Leia asked, genuinely curious.

“Because Hux wants them for his Oracle program,” was Ben’s bitter reply. “I couldn’t destroy it outright, but I could make it difficult to train more soldiers.”

“Why did you want to destroy the program?”

Pain flashed across Ben’s face, so clear and sharp that Leia almost reached forward for him. She managed to stop herself, disguising her sudden movement as adjusting her weight in her seat.

“It was the program I was a part of the entire time I was with the First Order. You could say I had a personal grudge.” He was no longer looking at her, his gaze instead fixed to the wall behind her.

For two hours they spoke, Leia prying details out of Ben with her pointed questions and Ben giving her flat, robotic replies as he looked anywhere but at her. Leia was grateful that Ben didn’t see the horror sweep across her face when he described what, exactly, Oracle was. Leia’s commlink frequently buzzed with message requests—no doubt from Holdo at the encouragement of Poe—but Leia ignored it. She didn’t want to lose momentum, not now when her son was finally here to explain what had happened to him.

Finally, hours after the original transmission from Ben via Maz Kanata, Leia’s brain needed a break. She knew Ben did too.

“Your information is adequate,” Leia finally said, taking a deep breath. Ben had just finished explaining the missions to Pillio and Bayora. She knew what came next in the timeline, and she wasn’t ready to hear her son say it. She got to her feet, casting one last look at her son. “Our negotiation is settled; you won’t be given over to the New Republic at this time.” She paused, her tone becoming softer. “Are you certain you don’t want anything?”

He wouldn’t look at her. “No.”

Resigned, Leia glanced toward the camera and then the room’s only door. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

As soon as she was back in the corridor, the door to the security office slid open and everyone spilled out.

“You’re agreeing to his terms?” Poe asked, exasperation in his voice.

“I am.”

“We could have gotten that information without it!”

“It was my decision, _Commander,”_ Leia said pointedly.

Poe had the good graces to back down. “Ma’am.”

“How are we on the verification reports?” Leia asked, turning her attention to Holdo.

“We’ve got teams on the ground confirming his story,” she said. Her tone was light, but Leia knew Holdo was just as unhappy as Poe. She simply had the skill to hide it.

“We can release the girl as soon as I’m done talking to Ben,” Leia continued. “Kaydel, send a message to D’Qar, tell General Ematt he is to continue his command in alert mode.”

“Right away, General,” said Kaydel, disappearing down the ship’s corridor.

“Major Brance, if you could supervise the security office and see to it that nothing untoward happens in or out of this holding cell…” Leia turned to Holdo and Poe, who remained. “Poe, I want you to talk to Rey. I don’t need her information, I just need to keep her busy so she doesn’t panic and consider it necessary to break out. If she asks about Ben, say only that the General is still speaking with him. A little kindness could help.”

Poe looked at Holdo and back to Leia, taken aback. “What does that mean? I can be kind.”

“And you’ll do a great job,” Leia continued, giving him an encouraging smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “She’s in room C, next to the conference room upstairs, where we usually keep the holoprojector. Try to see if she’ll agree to eat something while you’re there, I don’t need her thinking we’re tyrants. And Amilyn,” Leia said, turning to her longtime friend, a new weariness settling around her heart. Her voice lowered, heavy with the weight of the night’s events. “I need the biggest favor of all.”

Holdo gave Leia a tight-lipped smile, appraising her. “I know.”

“When I come back to speak with Ben, I need you to trade places with Brance. Send him to the bridge, give him supervision over the confirmation reports. And then I need you to turn off the security cameras in that cell.”

Leia knew Holdo would agree. They had been friends for far too long for Holdo to outwardly question Leia’s methods. She was also perhaps the only one who really understood what was at stake; she had been Leia’s steady comfort and confidant in the lonely years since Ben disappeared a decade before.

“Can I give you a tip?” Holdo asked, taking Leia by her shoulders and offering her a kind look.

Leia sighed. “I need all the tips you can give to me.”

“Ditch the General persona,” Holdo said with a knowing air. “You did what you needed to protect the Resistance. But if you want him to respond to you, I think you’d have better luck as his mother.”

Leia squeezed Holdo’s hand, grateful that Holdo understood.

“When you go in there, give me five minutes.”

Leia nodded somberly. “Thank you, Amilyn.”

After a quick update at the bridge and a rushed trip to the bathroom to hold back a few dry heaves, Leia was back on the ship’s Security Deck. She turned back to the holding cell door, somehow more tense than she was the first time.

Ben hadn’t moved from his chair, although his shackled hands were now resting on the table in front of him. He looked up when Leia entered, the weight of exhaustion marking his features.

Leia took her former seat, settling herself down much more informally this time. She pulled out her commlink, pretending to check messages while she waited for the minutes to pass. She could feel Ben watching her silently, wondering if his mother had lost her mind. Satisfied that enough time elapsed for Holdo to follow her orders, Leia set her commlink down on the table and stood up, walking toward Ben.

He straightened up in his chair, suddenly nervous.

“Let me see your hands,” Leia instructed.

Ben did as he was told, and Leia removed the stun cuffs, tossing them aside on the table. She couldn’t bear to see her son in them for a second longer.

“That’s against protocol,” Ben told her, rubbing his wrists.

“No one’s watching.”

Curiously, Ben looked over his shoulder to the tiny camera planted near the ceiling. The dim red light that indicated activity was off.

“This isn’t part of our bargain,” Leia began, all her political masks and pretenses discarded. She dragged her chair around the table to sit closer to Ben. “This part’s just you and me… I want you to tell me what happened…”

Ben was watching her like a cornered animal, ready to flee.

“I’m hoping the fact that I saved you from the mercy of the New Republic shows my goodwill…” Leia caught herself, then softened. “I only want to help you…”

“I know.”

Leia’s shoulders slumped. “Then why aren’t you talking to me? All this time… especially these last few weeks… You’ve been in danger, and I could have helped you.”

“I know.”

Tears began to prick at the corners of Leia’s eyes. She shook her head, defeated. “I don’t understand.”

Ben tried to speak, but the words died in his throat. He tore his gaze away, his face giving him up. He was afraid, and the fear was eating him alive. “I don’t know where to start,” he finally admitted.

“Start with Snoke.” His name was like poison on Leia’s lips. Oh, how she hated him. “Why him?”

Ben frowned, rubbing his temple. For a long while, he just stared at the table in silence, contemplating his answer. Leia knew it was complicated, and while she was burning up inside with anticipation, she didn’t want to rush him.

“He was in my head,” he finally said, going on to explain how Snoke invaded his thoughts and tricked him into sharing his darkest fears, how it all finally culminated on that fateful night at the Academy when Luke confronted him. He talked about the darker parts of the Oracle program, how he had been trained into an obedient shell under the tutelage of the Supreme Leader, how he had fallen so far into the Dark side that he couldn’t conceive of a way out… He stumbled around the explanation of his desertion, but Leia could fit the pieces together and figure out what happened.

“What made you decide to come to us?” Leia asked. “It was an enormous risk.”

Something like absolution settled on his face. He shrugged. “I’m done.”

Leia frowned, not understanding. “You’re done?” She repeated.

“With all of it,” he said wearily. He shook his head. “I’m done fighting. I don’t care anymore.”

“Don’t say that,” Leia whispered.

“Why do you want to help me?”

Ben was looking at her, his face full of anguish. He shook his head, turning away, and Leia realized he was fighting back tears.

“How can you look at me? After… after everything…”

A vice seized Leia’s heart at the insinuation of Han, but she knew Ben felt it, too. Leia wanted to take Ben’s hand in her own, but she knew he would bolt if she touched him. He was torn between two worlds, rejecting Leia’s love while simultaneously craving it. He didn’t know where to turn, where to go to find safety and relief from his pain… It broke Leia’s heart, and for a moment she would have given him anything in the galaxy.

She wanted to tell him that she loved him, that Han had loved him… She wanted to tell him that she had never stopped waiting, never stopped hoping that he would come home. She never lost hope that the Light within him would prevail, saving him from Snoke’s machinations and more significantly, saving his soul. “You’re my son,” Leia told him, her voice assured.

But Ben was shaking his head. “No,” he told her. “Not anymore.”

Leia pulled back. His words were like a punch to the chest. “I don’t expect you to be the same boy I sent off to your uncle,” she finally said after a long moment of searching for her voice. “But I will always wait for you to come home. Always.”

He frowned at that, and a long silence followed.

“It wasn’t worth the price,” he whispered.

She sighed, her heart heavy. “I often wonder whether things are,” Leia told him gravely. “I’ve spent a lifetime trading other people’s lives… But I know your father would have thought it worth everything.”

Ben was lost in his thoughts.

“I know he’s forgiven you,” Leia continued. “And so have I… I do,” she added at the look of disbelief Ben gave her. She hesitated, choosing her next words very carefully. Her lip trembled as she spoke. “Nothing can change what happened… So, I can choose to hate you for it, but that means I lose my son.” She bit the inside of her cheek, an errant tear escaping. “I can’t afford to lose you, not again. I can’t lose anyone else…

“Ben,” Leia said, leaning toward him. There were tears in her eyes, and she suddenly felt very old, as though weighed down by a thousand years’ worth of burdens. Leia’s hand reached for his arm, but Ben pulled away.

Her hand came to rest on the empty space of table between them. “You’re so grown up,” she told him, her soft brown eyes searching his face. They locked on his eyes, and her face fell a little. “Tell me how to help you,” she pleaded. “Tell me what I need to do…”

When he spoke, his voice wasn’t more than a whisper. “You can’t help me.”

Leia bit her lip as the fingers of her outstretched hand curled into a fist. She withdrew, a cold resignation slowly filling her up. She knew it was the truth. Ben couldn’t offer her absolution any more than she could offer it to him.

They sat in silence for several long minutes. There was more to discuss, nearly a decade’s worth of secret details, but Leia was grieving the loss of her son all over again.

Eventually Leia reclaimed her voice, gaining control of her body all over again. “You ought to rest,” she said, her politician’s voice back. “There’s a few things to be done before I—before I can let you go—“

“Where’s Rey?”

Leia caught his eye, studying what she found there. It was warm and soft, and full of tenderness…

“You can see her soon,” Leia promised, getting to her feet, wiping the evidence of tears from her face.

“Where is she?”

“Talking with Poe.” Leia gave him an appraising look. “Are you sure you don’t want anything? It’s going to be a while.”

He shook his head.

“Okay.” Leia swallowed against the lump in her throat, trying to keep the weight of failure from crushing her.

When she stepped out of the holding cell to the solitude of the corridor, Leia allowed herself to shrink against the wall, her hands pressing against her face as if she could keep the tears inside.

 


	14. Deliverance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During a night off in Takodana, Finn comes up with an idea to destroy the Oracle program and give the Resistance the upper hand.
> 
> Rey and Ben appeal to the Resistance, offering a plan to find the map to Luke Skywalker.

All the exhaustion that had been weighing on Rey’s shoulders the last week was suddenly gone, replaced by an impatient electricity that made it impossible to sit still.

Hours, maybe even days passed before the door to her room opened again. Rey, slumped in one chair with her feet propped on the other, suddenly jumped to her feet. It was not the General who stood there, but a darkly handsome man.

“Where is he?” Rey demanded.

“He’s talking to the General,” the man replied automatically, as though the line had been rehearsed.

“And?” Rey continued, sizing up this newcomer. “Are you going to help us or not?”

He held up a hand, taking one chair and gesturing for Rey to do the same. “Let’s slow down a second here—“

“I don’t have—“

“We can’t just fly to Jakku on your information, not without some kind of plan,” he said, guessing Rey’s next words. “We’ve got to run recon, set up teams—negotiate,” he added pointedly.

“I’m going to Jakku,” Rey said stubbornly, knowing she would find a way there with or without the help of the Resistance.

He looked dubious. “Is that so?”

“You aren’t going to find anyone who’ll help off-worlders down there,” Rey told him, full of confidence. “I know the deserts—I’m your best bet for a guide—“

“You really want to help us find Luke Skywalker?”

“ _Yes._ That’s why we’re here— _”_

“Okay.” He adjusted his weight in his chair before giving Rey another long look. “Okay,” he repeated, more to himself than to Rey.

Rey returned the same long, appraising look before sinking into her previously vacated chair. “Who are you?” She asked bluntly.

“Poe,” he replied, glad for the change of pace.

“Are you the General’s assistant or something?”

“Or something,” he replied without missing a beat. “Depending on what she needs done. Most of the time I’m the Flight Commander.”

Rey looked him up and down. He certainly had the look of a heroic pilot, with his roguish good looks and leather jacket. “So why’re you here?”

“To talk.”

Rey bristled, ready to unload all of her pent up frustration on this man. For ages she had been left to wonder what was going on… “Fine,” she spat, launching into her long-winded tale from the very beginning. She steamrolled Poe with her story, barely coming up for air. She told him about Jakku, skipping over the Plaintive Hand Plateau, and about running into Finn and the First Order. She told him about Takodana and Onderon, about their capture by the First Order and their hasty flight to Ambria… Poe allowed Rey to talk herself into silence, watching with a curious but dubious expression.

Rey finished her long-winded explanation, staring at Poe with an expectant expression. “Well?” She said when it appeared Poe wasn’t going to speak first. “We’re wasting time sitting here—we need to move quickly—“

“The General’s working on it—“

Rey pulled a face. “What do you mean working on it? We’re your best bet to get on Jakku—I know the area, Ben knows the First Order—“

“Look, Rey,” Poe began. “It’s Rey, isn’t it?”

But frustration was welling up inside Rey, threatening to spill out. “How much longer is this going to take?”

Poe shrugged, but he didn’t look like he was stalling Rey on purpose. “I don’t know. But the Resistance hasn’t survived this long by making hasty decisions. We don’t just pounce into First Order territory without a plan.”

There was a long silence in which Poe and Rey sized each other up. Rey glared at him, unmoving. She hated to admit that he had a point…

“Can I ask you about him?” Poe finally said, uncrossing his arms and leaning forward in his chair. He ran a hand over his face, thinking over his question. He frowned. “What’s the deal with you two?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean—he falls out of the sky while on the run, and hires you to repair his ship, and he just—tells you the truth? About everything?”

Rey’s defenses shot up at the hint of suspicion. “I guess so,” she answered, trying to summon Ben’s haughty demeanor.

“Seems kinda risky, doesn’t it?” He asked her, frowning. “Telling you the truth. You barely know each other.”

“We’re friends.” Even as the words escaped Rey’s mouth, her stomach did a strange flip. Why did that explanation sound so… weak?

Then, before either of them could speak, Poe’s commlink began to beep. He pulled it out of his jacket pocket, checking the message before standing up.

“Come with me,” he said, stealing a sideways glance at Rey.

“Where are we going?” Rey asked, her heart suddenly skipping a beat.

Poe opened the door and stood back to let her pass. A heaviness had settled onto his features, the same heaviness that had been weighing down on Rey for days. “To see your friend.”

 

* * *

 

There was a time when coming face to face with his mother would have vindicated Ben. As a teen he imagined facing his parents with the fierce independence and prideful anger only youth could bring, throwing all their foolish fears back in their faces. _See?_ He would have said. _I’m not what you thought!_ But that day never came; the line that separated Ben from his parents suddenly became an uncrossable ocean. Luke had taken away that oft-dreamt reunion when he came into Ben’s room in the night, the same night he had taken away all the parts of Ben’s life that mattered.

After that, it wasn’t a reunion Ben dreamed of so much as a destruction. His desperate need to prove his mother’s fears wrong suddenly became a mission to see them through. It twisted him, ugly and cruel, and Ben obsessed over the thought of facing her after all this time. He didn’t imagine killing her the way Snoke had eventually made him kill his father; instead it was the destruction of her Resistance that he imagined, burning down everything his mother had thought more important than him. A desperate, childish fear had settled into his soul, spreading its dark fingers deep into his mind and unhinging him.

It was odd to think how so many things—cruel, evil things that had torn him apart—had lost their sharp edges. As he sat alone in his holding cell, Ben was numbed by how much it didn’t seem to matter anymore. He no longer sought destruction or vindication; he suddenly felt a thousand years older, a thousand years removed from his own past. His wounds had finally began to scar over, leaving a dull ache in his soul as a desperate search for answers came to an end.

Was this his absolution?

Was this deliverance?

 

* * *

 

Poe led Rey through the long halls of the starship, briefly acknowledging the faces they passed with a curt nod of his head. Their eyes often wandered to Rey, full of curiosity.

“Do they know we’re here?” Rey asked once she and Poe were alone in the lift. “The rest of the Resistance?”

“Right now we’re working on a need-to-know basis,” Poe told her, pressing a button. He looked sideways at her, as if expecting Rey to dart through the elevator doors. 

They rode the lift in silence, reaching the Security Deck with a slight jostle. Rey followed Poe’s lead, her heart beating a furious staccato in her chest. The walls here were bare and sterile, painted a stark white that was almost blinding, but Rey could sense a steady pulse of energy hidden away… Her heart leapt in her chest, and Rey resisted the urge to run to it. Poe stopped outside of an airlock door, typing in a security code and stepping back.

Standing in the middle of the sterile holding cell was Ben, arms crossed with his back toward the door.

“Ben!”

He turned when he heard Rey’s voice, stumbling backwards when Rey crashed into him. She threw her arms around his neck, digging her fingers through the material of his shirt. She pressed her face against his shoulder. The warm presence in her chest expanded, and something like relief flooded through her bones so suddenly she could have cried.

Her embrace was short-lived. Ben freed himself, holding Rey at arm’s length and scrutinizing every inch of her. “Are you okay?” He asked, looking for evidence of foul-play.

“I’m fine,” Rey managed breathlessly, drinking in the sight of Ben. He was exhausted, but entirely unharmed. “But you—how are you?”

“I’m fine—“

“He said they’re letting us go—“ Rey turned around, suddenly remembering Poe standing in the doorway. “Right?” She asked him. “That’s what you said—“

“That’s what the General tells me,” Poe replied in a tight voice, crossing his arms over his chest and eyeing them both warily.

Rey turned back to Ben, her stomach twisting into a knot. “Did you see her?” She asked quietly.

He swallowed, a new weariness crossing his face. “Yeah. About that…”

“…I do say…”

They turned at the sound of a new voice. Emerging behind Poe was a golden droid with human proportions, muttering to himself in displeasure.

“…Completely unbecoming for a servant of my programming…”

“I’ll alert the media,” Poe replied dryly, taking the two small boxes from his robotic hands.

“While I don’t believe a press release is entirely appropriate, Master Dameron, I might suggest a brief review of—“

“Here,” Poe said, setting the boxes on the table. “Eat up. You’re going to be here a bit longer while we tie up some loose ends.”

Rey’s eye went from the food to the golden droid before turning back to Poe. She watched him with a mix of suspicion and appreciation. “Is the General coming back?”

Poe ran a hand through his hair, sighing. “I imagine so.” He waved a hand. “Couple details to work out.” He cleared his throat, casting another look around the room before fixing them with a final look. “All right, well, get comfortable…”

Poe and the droid disappeared through the airlock door.

Rey turned back to Ben, whose thoughts appeared to be very far away.

“Ben?”

He looked at her, brought back to the present. “You’re certain you’re okay?”

Rey nodded. She couldn’t articulate why Ben’s concern put her on edge. “Yeah.” She turned to look at the food the Resistance bad brought them and pulled the containers toward herself. She unboxed them both, examining the contents before pulling the other chair around to sit squarely next to Ben. Rey sat down and looked up at him expectantly when he didn’t move right away. She pulled their sandwiches toward them, and unwrapped Ben’s before handing it to him.

“Are you okay?” She asked softly, repeating Ben’s question back to him. “We were separated for so long…”

“I’m fine,” Ben told her, taking his sandwich apart with his fingers into smaller and smaller pieces. Suddenly he added, “I made a deal.”

Rey, who was halfway through her food, hesitated. “What kind of deal?” She asked, frowning as she licked the tip of her thumb clean.

Ben’s brows knit together, his face twisting in a strange sort of self-scrutiny Rey didn’t understand. He seemed torn between a hundred thoughts and brushed them away with a wave of his hand, impatient. “For one, they’re letting us go with our information. But I ran some plans by her—“

Rey didn’t miss the careful way Ben avoided choosing between saying “my mother” or “the General.”

“—about retrieving the information from Jakku ourselves. She claimed she needed to run it by the others, but I think she’ll agree.”

“You said you’d go back to Jakku?” Rey was stunned. “Why?”

He shrugged, giving Rey a funny look. “I don’t know,” he said. “It seemed like the sort of thing you’d do.”

“Oh.”

He glanced at her, frowning, then turned to face her head-on. “You still want to go, don’t you? Because I can—“

“Yes,” Rey interrupted before Ben could let doubt creep into his head. The Ben she knew a week ago would have never done this. In fact, Rey was sure the Ben she knew two days ago would never have done this. It went against every instinct of self-preservation he had.

_It seemed like the sort of thing you’d do._

The words bounced around in Rey’s head and a flush crept across her cheeks. She looked at Ben, really looked at him, and realized she was seeing him anew. It was like that night in the Plaintive Hand, when he had revealed the secrets of the Force to Rey; only now the secrets being shared were for just the two of them. They spoke without words, sharing a hundred thoughts in an instant across some cosmic bond… Rey recalled the night Ben had held her so tenderly, and her stomach did a flip… She never imagined being so intertwined with another person before. A sixth sense had awoken inside of her, reaching through the deepest parts of her, greedy for more…

Rey had tried to force her mind into action, but instinct and a desirous need overruled rational thought. Suddenly she was leaning forward, her hand reaching toward his face and guiding their connection. In half a second her lips were on his, pulling him closer.

Then, just as quickly as she kissed him, Rey pulled back. She didn’t dare to breathe even as the electricity that had exploded inside of her began to dissipate. Her mind had suddenly become blank, and she didn’t know what was supposed to happen next… She searched his face for answers, but he looked just as shocked as she felt. She had forgotten how to speak, how to even breathe…

Had it been a mistake? Rey had never kissed a man before, and certainly never gave the thought much energy while on Jakku. Rey’s instincts had never led her astray before, but she seemed to find herself falling into Ben’s orbit… All her rational senses had gone to the wayside.

Rey opened her mouth to speak—to explain, to apologize, to say _anything_ —but then the airlock door opened once more.

 

* * *

 

There had been last minute meetings called, several of them, crammed in corridors and offices during the short moments of time they had to spare. Ten hours after the first transmission from Takodana, Leia managed to pin down a time to get everyone to gather on the secondary bridge for a meeting. It was technically Vice Admiral Holdo’s ship—which meant she would lead the meeting—but she deferred to Leia as she often did in important matters of the Resistance, allowing the other woman to take center stage.

The secondary bridge wasn’t the ideal location for a meeting, but it was the only space large enough to fit everyone who wasn’t tied down to their station.

Leia rubbed her forehead, working at the tension behind her eyes. As she looked around, the whispering bridge fell silent, all eyes moving to her.

“There’s been a change of plans,” she began heavily, falling back to the familiar politician persona she had cultivated over decades. “This ship has been reassigned duty from its previous mission and will now serve as the base of operations for a recovery mission in Jakku.”

Several people glanced at each other, surprised by the development. Leia continued on, presenting her hastily-prepared speech to the crew of the _Ninka._ “A few hours ago, High Command received a transmission from Takodana, promising intel vital to the mission of the Resistance. The two informants were able to pinpoint a village in Jakku, believing a man named Lor San Tekka is in possession of a star chart leading to the first Jedi Temple, which is where Luke Skywalker is rumored to be… We’ve sent reconnaissance teams from Black Squadron to the area to map out the presence of the First Order, which appears to be overwhelming,” she continued heavily. “A Star Destroyer is located just beyond Jakku’s moon, orbiting the planet. In order to locate Lor San Tekka, we will need to send a small team undetected to the planet’s surface. Your leadership is still hammering out the details, but you will all receive mission briefings shortly.

“Our preliminary intel from Black Squadron indicates the First Order presence is isolated around a rural area of the desert the locals call the Plaintive Hand Plateau. Early satellite images indicate some sort of base, supported by transports from the Star Destroyer. Now, we don’t yet know what’s in the desert that has the First Order so interested, but the plan remains to get in and out quickly without attracting their attention.”

“Can we trust the information?” one of the pilots from Yellow Squadron asked. “It could be a trap—“

“Major Brance has run verification reports. By all signs, it appears their intel is true and their appeal genuine.”

“Who are they? Spies?”

“A Jakku native and a former defense contractor,” Leia replied, the lie automatic. She and the members of High Command had agreed there was no need to divulge Kylo Ren’s identity to the rest of the ship. As far as the crew was concerned, Ben was a private contractor who turned rogue against the First Order after a change of heart. “I know you will all have questions, but there’s very little time to give them the answers they deserve… we will need to move quickly, before the First Order realizes we’re around.

“Now, our ship has been rerouted to the Western Reaches, near Burke’s Trailing, so we can provide support to our teams on the ground. We should be arriving within the next hour, so everyone can return to their stations and await briefing. Thank you.”

Murmurs broke out as the crew began discussing the information. Leia and the members of High Command slipped out of the secondary bridge; they moved toward the primary bridge above while Leia headed to the Security Deck two levels below. Waiting there, sitting together on the far side of the holding cell, were Ben and Rey. They jumped apart at her arrival, as though electrocuted.

“We have what we need,” Leia said, looking between them with curiosity. “Your intel has been confirmed, and High Command is willing to consider your proposal.”

Rey and Ben exchanged an odd look, but it was Rey who recovered first. “You’re going to Jakku?”

“We’ll hear what you have to say, but the decision of whether or not you’re part of the mission still lies with me.” Leia took a step back, gesturing that they should follow. “Everyone’s on the bridge.”

Rey got to her feet first, followed by a white-faced Ben.

It was entirely against protocol to allow Rey and Ben to walk freely through the ship without a guard, but Leia seemed to be breaking a lot of rules tonight. She imagined the protestations from C-3PO, and the stern looks of disapproval from High Command… but one of the perks of being General Organa was that no one dared to veto her decisions, no matter how unpopular.

Leia ignored all the curious glances the crew of the _Ninka_ sent their way, leading Rey and Ben toward the upper levels of the ship. She briefly considered alerting the others she was bringing company, but it would take just as long to send a message as it would to simply show up in person.

“Try not to move too quickly,” Leia warned them as she unlocked the doors to the bridge.

All eyes turned to Leia and her companions. Expressions suddenly shifted to panic, hands reaching toward weapons.

Poe was nearest the door, his blaster hesitating halfway out of its holster. “Uh, General?”

“They’re with me,” Leia said, waving a dismissive hand. “Put your fire away.” She led Rey and Ben further into the bridge. “This meeting is to discuss final plans for a mission to Jakku. I thought it’d be easier if Rey and Ben were here to speak for themselves, given that it was their idea.”

Leia settled herself into her usual seat, directing her attention toward her son and his fiery companion. The other members of High Command stepped forward warily, a few hands still resting on the handles of their blasters. Near the comms, Kaydel Connix looked ready to sound the alarm at the first whiff of trouble.

“Go ahead,” Leia invited when they didn’t speak.

Rey looked nervous. Ben stood at her shoulder, arms folded across his chest as he stared at the floor with a frown Leia was beginning to understand was permanent.

“If you’re sending a team to Jakku, then you’re going to need help,” Rey began, her voice wavering from all the attention. She paused, swallowing, and added, “Lor San Tekka won’t be easy to find, so you’ll need someone who knows the area, who can blend in…”

“And who are you proposing?” Holdo asked, raising her chin.

“Me. Us,” Rey added, casting a sideways glance at Ben.

He cleared his throat. “You’ll also need someone who knows the behavior of the First Order,” he said, glaring at the floor.

“I would have thought you’d want to leave,” Holdo said, frowning. “Your negotiations allowed for you to leave our ship freely.”

Ben looked at her before taking in all of the stares directed at him, clearly uncomfortable by the attention. “We came here to help,” he said by way of explanation, adjusting his weight on his feet. “You can send a team to Jakku, but you’ll waste days trying to navigate the desert and risk exposure… our plan is faster and by all accounts, better.”

“And what is your plan?” Poe asked coolly, sizing him up.

“The _Finalizer_ is parked near the northern hemisphere,” Ben said. “If we approach from the south in a small transport—one marked for smuggling—it lowers the risk of detection. I already ran scans of their movements and have a full map of their routes on my ship’s computer. Once we’re on the surface, far away from the _Finalizer’s_ sensors, we change course.”

“The most likely place is Old Meru’s,” Rey added, her shoulders rising with a newfound confidence. “No one will question a smuggler’s ship on Jakku…”

“We’ll lead a small crew of your fighters to Lor San Tekka, after which we’ll secure the map and return to your flagship by the same route as our approach,” Ben finished. “We should be able to finish the mission in less than a day’s cycle.”

“And why can’t we do all that without you?” Poe asked.

“The locals will give you up in a heartbeat,” Rey said, giving him a sharp look. “You won’t blend in. And if we attract the notice of the First Order, Ben’s your best bet for losing it.”

Slowly, every pair of eyes came to land on Leia, who had been listening in contemplative silence.

“Would they recognize you?” Holdo asked, breaking the silence as she directed this question toward Ben.

“It’s a risk, but an unlikely one. My identity was mostly unknown through the First Order,” he answered.

“Even after your skirmish in Niima Outpost?”

“Old Meru’s is far away from Niima,” Rey said. “Farther than Unkar Plutt or his cronies would ever travel…”

“Our scans indicate the First Order hasn’t been within eight hundred miles of Old Meru’s,” Ben added.

“But why should we trust you?” Major Brance spoke up. Leia’s eyes flickered toward him. “He’s First Order,” Brance said, turning toward Leia.

“He was,” Leia corrected. “He’s now just as much a foot soldier for Snoke as you or me.”

Ben caught her eye.

“General, that doesn’t mean it’s not risky,” Poe interjected.

“Everything’s a risk,” Leia said firmly. “Every move we make is a risk—we are at a perpetual disadvantage against the First Order. We cannot go turning up our noses at this chance to bolster our strength just because it seems a little… questionable.”

“How many do you need for a team?” Holdo asked, turning the conversation into a tactical one.

“Two, maybe three, with one person posted on comms,” Ben answered.

Leia already knew who she would assign to the mission. Her gaze found Poe’s, and she gave him a curt nod in confirmation.

“Your flagship will need to stay near Burke’s Trailing to avoid detection,” Ben added.

“We won’t be able to monitor your ship from that distance,” Holdo warned him.

“Your scanners won’t, but my ship still has First Order software. Download it into your flagship’s computer systems, and you’ll be able to track their movements from anywhere.”

“But that covers the First Order—not you.”

Ben and Rey exchanged a look. “You’ll have to trust us,” Rey said. “We can do it.”

“General?”

Holdo was deferring to Leia.

It was a risky plan, full of potential wrong turns and risks… Leia knew plans like these all too well, had participated in them herself throughout the years… Her instinct was to deny it—to refuse to send her son into danger so soon after getting him back—but she couldn’t make this decision as a mother. She had to be General Organa, the leader to whom her entire Resistance deferred. Leia couldn’t let personal attachments or fears cloud her decisions…

“Kaydel, send a message to the Tico sisters, tell them to meet in the hangar bay where Ben’s ship is being kept, and to bring a droid with an extra memory bank. When you’re done, I want you to monitor the comms with the Jakku ground team. Defer all other transmissions. Poe,” she continued, turning to her Flight Commander. “You will accompany the team to Jakku—choose whomever you think is best as your second, and prepare Black Squadron to stand by in case we need to intervene. Major Brance—“ Leia’s voice grew as she spoke, her decision taking hold within her. She gave out her instructions to High Command, and before she knew it, a plan was formed. A dangerous, risky plan, but one with a huge payoff if they were successful.

They would be one step closer to finding Luke, one step closer to gaining a sizable advantage over the First Order…

As everyone hurried out of the bridge, Leia’s eyes found Ben. He was walking with Poe and Rey toward the hangar bay, nearly a head taller than both of them. Leia watched them go, praying she wasn’t sending her son into certain death.

 

* * *

 

The _Ghost_ returned to Takodana for what the crew called a “Triple F.”

“What does that mean?” Finn asked in spite of himself. He still felt sick by their job in Daxam IV, and couldn’t fight the feeling that the First Order somehow had eyes on him. The whole point of fleeing with the _Ghost_ was to avoid the First Order, not to business with them…

“Food,” Ulas told him gruffly as the ship lurched, leaving hyperspace.

“Fuel,” Tobi added. Suddenly he gave Finn a leer from his seat, pleased at some secret thought. “Know what else starts with ‘F’?”

Finn could certainly guess, but Tobi gave him an explicit gesture for good measure. Finn gave him a grimace, nodding his understanding and regretting asking at all. The absolute _last_ thing on his mind was coupling with some stranger after they had just come face-to-face with an agent of the First Order, and he couldn't believe the crew would be so cavalier…

In fact, Finn was rethinking his job on the _Ghost_ entirely…

 

“Something on your mind, kid?” Ulas asked.

Finn looked up and realized the older man had been watching him.

“How can you do it?” Finn asked in spite of himself. A sick feeling was rising in the back of his throat. “With everything the First Order does… all the people they kill…” His eyes drifted toward the coaxium fuel, carefully stowed away, worth thousands of credits. Suddenly he didn’t want any of it.

Ulas rolled his eyes. “You’re still on about that?” He fixed Finn with a long, knowing stare before continuing. “It’s just business, kid… you wanna pick sides, you’re welcome to take up a blaster and join an army…”

“That’s blood money.”

“That blood money pays for the food in your belly, kid.”

Finn shook his head. “No—“

“Look, if you’ve got a moral qualm about smuggling, then I might suggest that you aren’t cut out to be a smuggler,” Ulas told him. “It ain’t nothing personal. Got it?”

But those words fell empty on Finn’s ears. “No,” he said. “No, it’s wrong—“

Ulas groaned, leaning back in his seat and staring at the ceiling. “Tobi, you talk to the kid—“

Tobi stepped closer at the sound of his name. “Sorry this work ain’t the dream, Finn—but that’s just reality. There’s always gonna be people trying to kill each other, that’s just the way of things, so all you can do is keep your head down. We’ve got a good thing going here—you’ve got a good thing here—so forget about the First Order. Put that shit out of your mind.”

“Where’d it come from?” Finn asked sharply.

Tobi gave him an exasperated look. “Where’d what come from?”

“The stuff we sold to the First Order—“

It was Tobi’s turn to roll his eyes. “You really wanna know?” He waited a beat before answering. “Chandrilla. Their big, fancy university. There are no good guys here, Finn. It's always about money. Money and power. And when you want more of it, you just start a war with somebody, pretending it's all about rights and shit, and then you swoop in and take everything they've got. They all do it.”

“Stop overthinking it, kid,” Ulas chimed in. “War never makes any damn sense.”

“Do you have any idea what the First Order is going to do with that stuff?” Finn demanded. “What they’re capable of?”

“Enlighten us,” Ulas replied dryly.

“Clone armies—“

Tobi scoffed. “You mean like the Old Republic?”

“This is different—“

“So _stay out of it_ ,” Ulas told him sharply. “Keep your head down. Mind your own damn business, and get paid. Or go join that damn Resistance movement if you care so much—“

“Approaching Takodana, prepare for landing in two minutes,” came Malek’s voice over the comms.

“They’re making super soldiers—they’re not just Stormtroopers,” Finn insisted.

“And how d’you know that?” Ulas asked, his voice dripping with disbelief.

“Don’t egg him on,” Tobi muttered, shaking his head as he moved back toward the kitchen area. “The kid doesn’t know what he’s on about.”

Finn resisted the urge to reveal himself. He doubted whether the crew would believe him, and he certainly didn’t believe they would stop selling to the First Order, not when the payment was so tempting. He bit his tongue, unable to reconcile his urge to run from the fight and warn somebody about what the First Order was up to… It twisted a knot in his stomach...

The ship descended onto the surface of Takodana, just outside of Maz Kanata’s castle. A heavy weight settled in Finn’s chest when he caught sight of the castle, and his thoughts drifted back toward Ben and Rey. He had tried to keep himself from thinking about them too much, but suddenly their absence weighed heavily on his mind. What would Rey say if she knew Finn was smuggling invaluable material to the First Order, helping them get one step closer to a clone army of Force sensitives? Elite units made up of a hundred Kylo Rens?

_…you wanna pick sides, you’re welcome to take up a blaster and join an army…_

Finn reached into his trouser pocket, suddenly remembering the scrap of paper the Resistance fighter had given him in Chandrilla… A plan was already forming in his head, layer after layer coming into place as Finn thought about how the First Order could be stopped… he knew which ship was the science vessel, he knew a key trading outpost and what the First Order was after… As the ideas ran wild through his mind, Finn was certain he finally knew a way the First Order could be stopped…

He fiddled with the scrap piece of paper in his pocket as they approached the castle. He would just need a little firepower…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
